Free East of Wimbledon by Nigel Williams Page B

defrocked dentist, and they had nearly offered a job to a man from Sri Lanka who seemed to know everything about the school apart from the fact that it was supposed to be for Muslims. He turned out to have escaped from an open prison in Dorking. Finally they had hired an almost completely monosyllabic man from the University of West Cameroun called Dr Ahmed Ali. All he had said at the interview, apart from ‘I completely agree with you’ and ‘You are absolutely right, Headmaster!’ was ‘Let’s get this show on the road!’
    ‘He’s a dry stick, Wilson,’ said Mr Malik, ‘but he is 100 per cent loyal. And I am looking for 100 per cent loyalty. Everything else can go hang!’
    Dr Ali was to teach maths, chemistry, philosophy, geography and world events. He was, presumably, at this very moment, teaching one or some or all of these things in the large, airy classroom he occupied next to Robert’s. As usual, no sound whatsoever came from his room.
    Robert was not teaching. He was in the state – now, after two months of the autumn term, agonizingly familiar to him – of being about to teach.
At any moment
, he told himself,
I will find myself up on my legs, waving my arms around in the air and giving.
His mother was always telling him that it was important for teachers to give, although what they were supposed to give she did not say. What did the little bastards want?
    He sat at his desk and looked at his class. They looked back at him. ‘Right,’ he said, threateningly, ‘I am going to call the register.’
    Mahmud put up his hand. ‘Please, sir,’ he said, ‘I want to go to the toilet.’
    Robert sighed. ‘Right,’ he said, even more threateningly. ‘Does anyone else want to go to the toilet?’
    No one moved. Fifteen small faces, in various shades of brown, studied him impassively.
    ‘A Muslim should enter the lavatory with his left foot first, saying, “Bismillah Allahumma Inni a’udhu Bika min al-Khubthi wa al-Khaba’ith” (In the name of Allah, Allah in You I take refuge from all evils).’
    ‘I know what’ll happen,’ said Robert. ‘Mahmud will go to the toilet and then you’ll all want to go. You’ll all rush out after him, won’t you? I want you all to think very hard about whether you
really
want to go to the toilet.’
    The pupils of the reception class at the Independent Wimbledon Day Islamic Boys’ School did not enter the lavatory with their left feet first. They ran at it, screaming, in large numbers. Like children everywhere, they seemed to find lavatories hilarious.
    Robert had read the chapter on lavatories in
Morals and Manners in Islam
by Dr Marwan Ibrahim Al-Kaysi of the University of Yarmouk. It was tough stuff, and here, as in so many departments, the Independent Boys’ Islamic Day Wimbledon School was falling short of Dr Al-Kaysi’s, admittedly high, standards.
    Morals and Manners in Islam
was the only book on the subject he had been able to find in Wimbledon Public Library. Apart from Mr Malik, it was Robert’s only real guide to his assumed religion. But was it right? Was Al-Kaysi on the money? He certainly seemed to strike few chords with Class 1.
    ‘If you really,
really
want to go,’ Robert went on, ‘then now is the time. There will be no other chance for the rest of the lesson. From now on in it’s do-it-in-your-pants time.’
    His class laughed. They liked him. And Robert, in some moods, found the company of boys under ten both soothing and stimulating.
    Sheikh, a small, pale boy of about seven, leaned forward in his desk. ‘Is this number ones and number twos, sir?’ he said – ‘or is there any flexibility on that?’
    Sheikh was going to do well. His father described himself as a lawyer, although, like most of the parents and many of the staff of the Wimbledon Islamic Independent School (Boys’ Day), Robert suspected he was not being entirely open about his status.
    ‘We must all pull together in the various departments!’ Mr Malik had told