Free East of Wimbledon by Nigel Williams Page A

Perhaps she had decided that Hasan was deaf as well as blind.
    ‘Where’s he from?’ said Robert’s father, clearly feeling, like his wife, that the little boy was not up to responding to direct questions.
    ‘Bangladesh,’ said Robert, aware that his parents liked definite answers.
    Hasan walked into the sofa, fell on to it, and curled up like a cat. He smiled to himself. He seemed pleased to be in the Wilson house. ‘The time of my Occultation is not yet come!’ he said.
    Robert thought this was probably good news. He thought of asking the little boy when he thought his Occultation might be. They might need to get in special clothing, or warn the neighbours.
    Hasan, as if sensing Robert’s curiosity said, ‘I must not speak of these things. It is forbidden to speak of them!’
    Maisie, standing over by the bookcase, next to Mr Wilson senior’s collection of country and western records, wore a solemn, almost religious, expression. ‘They’re very strict are Muslims,’ she said, in the kind of voice that suggested she wouldn’t mind them being a bit strict with her. She cast her eyes down to the floor. ‘Especially towards women!’ she added.
    Robert looked at her and at Hasan. It was obvious that the Independent Boys’ Day Islamic School Wimbledon was going to change his life in more ways than he could anticipate.
    He went over to the window and looked out at the street. The man in the ripped jacket was still there, although he was no longer watching the house. Now he was able to take a good long look at him, Robert could see that there was something strange about his shoes. One of them was a normal black leather boot. The other was a slipper-like creation of vaguely Eastern design. As he stood there, looking up the street, the man lifted it from the pavement and rubbed it against his leg, as if his foot was infected with some curious itch. Then he looked back at the Wilson house and stared, insolently, in at the blank suburban windows.

PART TWO

7
    There had been difficulties with local planning officials. There had been opposition from local residents. Herbert Henry, the taxi driver, had told customers in the Frog and Ferret that its effect on house prices would be catastrophic. ‘Would you like to live next door to a Muslim school,’ he said, ‘considering what they get up to?’ When asked
what
they got up to, he had muttered darkly that he knew a thing or two about Muslims and ordered drinks all round. His son Alf, the skinhead, had said that he would personally strangle any Muslim he found messing with his wife, adding that if Tehran was such a great place why didn’t the bastards go back there?
    Henry Farr, the solicitor from Maple Drive, who could be so funny when he chose, had said, in his comic colonel voice, that ‘Johnny Muslim can be quite a tricky customer!’
    But, somehow or other, Mr Malik’s school was in business. He opened, five weeks behind schedule, in mid October. It had been, as the headmaster pointed out to Robert, a desperate scramble to get any of the punters in at all. A mole working inside Cranborne School had supplied them with a mailing list of all Muslim parents whose children had been rejected by ‘This is a Christian Country’ Gyles, the Junior School headmaster, and Robert and Maisie had been through the telephone directory, picking out anyone with a Muslim-sounding name. Apart from a few Sikhs and a very irritable Hindu from East Sheen, most of the targeted persons seemed quite pleased to be asked.
    Teachers had been more difficult. ‘There are not many people in Wimbledon who have your qualifications,’ Mr Malik had said to Robert in the pub. This was not surprising. Since his appointment, Robert had awarded himself a degree from Yale, an honorary doctorate from Edinburgh University, two novels and a successful season with the Chicago Bears football team.
    They had interviewed a man from Bombay who claimed to have a degree in physics but turned out to be a