Free You're Not Proper by Tariq Mehmood Page A

me away on holiday, and if this was the case, we were off to Italy, I reckoned. After Man U, Dad loved A.C. Milan. Or maybe we would go to Bodrum, in Turkey. Dad’s mates always went there. He often talked about going there, sitting on a beach, getting a boat and going out into the sea, fishing. Or maybe, just maybe, he would take me into town and get me a new laptop.
    Finally, we finished our breakfast and Dad said to me, ‘I’m taking you somewhere really special.’
    â€˜Where?’ I asked.
    â€˜Dad and his lovely daughter are going for a boat ride…’
    â€˜Boat ride!’ I said. I was filled with pride for having worked out he was going to take me to Turkey.
    â€˜We are going rowing. I’ve booked a boat in Boarhead Park.’ ‘Boarhead Park. Rowing,’ I thought and said, ‘Great, Dad.’
    And a-rowing we went, Dad and me, in the lake in the middle of Boarhead Park. I sat stiffly in the back of our car, while Dad went on about how wonderful it was for the two of us to spend time together, just me and him.
    At one end of the lake, there is a small café and next to this is the office for hiring boats. Dad bought me an ice-cream and whilst I sat there stabbing it with a small white plastic spoon he went off to sort out the boat. There are two islands in the middle of the ‘s’ shaped lake, one in each of the curves of the ‘s’, where ducks and geese and other birds breed. Along the banks of the lake there are big oak trees, some bent towards the lake, others so big and tall their shadows fall across the waters like large monsters, moving over the ripples from the oars of passing boats and the swimming ducks and geese.
    By the time Dad came out, my ice-cream had been reduced to a gooey mess.
    â€˜Ready?’ Dad asked. I nodded.
    â€˜Like the ice-cream?’ He asked.
    â€˜Yeh, Dad.’
    He went so confidently towards the boat, like he had been rowing all his life and stepped into the boat with such force that it almost capsized. A boat assistant ran up and held the boat whilst Dad got his balance back.
    The boat had two places to sit. One next to the oars and the other in front of that. I sat in front of Dad. The oars were placed on either side of the boat. Dad picked them up, put them into the metal holders and rowed. As he did this, he stood up, took some keys out of his back pocket and sat down again. The boat shook from side to side.
    â€˜Careful, Dad.’ I laughed. ‘Mum says you swim like a brick.’ ‘Less of that!’ Dad said rowing, ‘there’ll be no need for that.’
    I was surprised. He was so good at rowing! He used both oars together as we pulled out and then used one to turn and the other to move forward and make sure we missed another boat, full of loud-mouthed teenage boys, which was coming at us with full speed. As we went into one of the turns, Dad’s rowing became smooth and methodical, the oars going into the water, pushing the boat through it, coming out, dripping, and dropping back again, sounding almost musical.
    â€˜He’s not such a clumsy oaf,’ your Dad, I thought, looking at his big smile on his big, beautiful, fat face. His big, beautiful belly was popping out of his shirt as some of the buttons had become undone. He closed his eyes for a moment and started singing in his own language, a song I had heard him hum many times but never heard him sing.
    I wished I could understand, but even without this, it felt so good, listening to him singing.
    â€˜What does it mean, Dad?’
    He smiled and said, ‘Do you remember when I went to Pakistan, when my friend Aziz died.’
    I tried to think. I remembered him going, but not much more than that. I put my hands between my knees and nodded.
    â€˜I used to go to the same school as him when I was young. We were like brothers, we were. He was a poor man, who worked in the hills behind my village, for a stone contractor. He