I climbed a wriggling rope ladder and was hauled aboard.
Among the first things that I was told was not to take personally the savage kicking I received when I landed on the deck like an asphyxiated trout. All new arrivals got their guts and livers kicked blue. It was a way of establishing routine, normality—and hierarchy.
Above everything else, violence establishes a hierarchy—a chain of command, if you will. But you know that already, don’t you, Billy?
Why else are you here? Because you lost the race.
And I will always have more answers than you have questions.
Raging is too grand a term, but a war was certainly ongoing. You could hear the pilots overhead; you could hear the pock-marking detonations.
A war was ongoing and I didn’t wish to be a part of it.
My crime was theft. Bombs meant nothing to me, blood. And to tell you the truth, blood meant nothing much to me either.
I stole water. I stole water more than once, but I was thirsty. Dying of thirst. I didn’t know what else I could do to maintain my equilibrium. I needed water.
Is that clear enough?
I needed water as much as I needed air. It wasn’t free and I couldn’t afford to buy it. So I did what others did: I stole it.
The oasis was feared and revered. To the inhabitants of the shanties and the slums it was where a stereotypical Heaven and a stereotypical Hell met comfortably. It was home. It was life. The oasis meant a break from the heat.
There were makeshift establishments, scattered here and there. Little pockets of civilisation. Freckles on the arm of a country.
But which country?
I’m astonished, Billy-Boy, that you’ve been so slow in the asking. You disappoint me, cuz.
You’ll ask me where. You’re not a moron: you’ll ask me where.
And I’ll say: desert.
…Barry Manilow wrote the songs the whole world sang.
I commited the crimes the whole world watched. And subsequently, I was able to brilliance a total re-focusing away from my past, from my history.
Given what I’d done, who cared where I’d lived.
Dott? What sort of fucking name is Dott?
I stole it from a Neasden Town snooker player.
My name—my real name—you will never know. You don’t need to.
Not twice in your life would you be able to spell it, and not once would you be able to say it aloud. Imagine the car- crash of letters.
The only important thing is where I lived.
Places shape us; places build us.
I was a desert child and no one has ever thought to check me out. To dry me out to bare the desert: the desert. The Sahara.
Made from sand and dust, I was a man before I was a boy. I have never been a boy. I don’t remember anything but the sand, the dust…
Wearing a scarf and a pair of goggles was the norm. It was a necessity, to protect your eyes against the white light and the smotes. You started your day fully clothed—stepping out into the raging heat—and you finished it by stripping to the knackers. In other countries you dress for the chill of the night- time hours, but we—we couldn’t wait for it.
Night-time was like having the cuffs unshackled.
I remember the time when Morjardahid discovered grass.
It can’t be explained. But Morjardahid found grass in the sand—and grass doesn’t grow in the sand—and he brought it back to The Wethouse for inspection and praise. His lips were baboon-bum red with excitement.
The Wethouse. The Wethouse was what we called the hospital. The sick went in and did not return. The negatives—the not-yet-borns—went in and stayed a long time. The wetnurse’s name was Saira el Door.
That name, and the taste of her left nipple, I remember fondly.
Me? I had the ageing disease.
Generating electricity was part of the punishment, for some lags.
You’ve seen the films, Billy.
Row! Row! Row your boat! Gently down the stream! But there was no boat. And there was no stream.
There was a ship and there was an oasis.
Why a ship? No rain, and yet the oasis thrived. Allow it.
But why a ship? Why not drown us and burn the bones? We meant next to nothing. So why the consideration?
Why a ship?
The Leper Island is the answer.
We were held in the grip of fear by the Leper Island. It might have been no more than the size of five prisons, but it didn’t matter.
We felt the breath. That was the real punishment.
Blackened breath on a stale, hot breeze.
…I’ve changed my mind: my name is Noor Aljarhalifaro. (I’ve changed my name too - but you already knew that.) You can call me Dott. That’s a joke.
If it had one—or one that was widely accredited—the township was called, variably, Umma—meaning ‘community of believers’—or Mostashifa—meaning ‘hospital’. A town called Hospital.
There were two other terms.
The first was Mostashifa Tamaninat. ‘Hospital.’ ‘To be motionless.’
The second was more complex. Ana mabsout beshughlak, it ran. I am happy with your work. A town called ‘I Am Happy With Your Work’.
You know those cartons of fruit drink that we get every day? The breakfast slops. You’ve probably got one in front of you right now. Study it.
There’s a picture on the front. There’s a picture of a halved mango, a halved apple, a chopped banana, diced pear; there’s a picture of a mangled kiwi and a decimated nectarine.
In the same picture is a whole—an entire—peach.
Why? Why did the peach survive bowdlerisation and viciousness? I’ll tell you why. Because the peach is the only fruit to resemble the human body.
The peach looks like a woman’s arse. Pure and simple.
Even ad campaign designers recognised this fact.
I am happy with your work, Billy Alfreth.
I have no choice but to be so. No one else has ever made the effort.
Apart from Kate.
One last thing—or ‘ting’ as you would say.
I’ve got all the time in the world—literally—but you haven’t. Rinse me clean of this disease and I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.
I’ll talk to you about time.
I love you.
Ronald Dott x
Part Five:
Declensions (The Sadness of Roses)
One.
No one kicks off in the Cookery class. But violently worded debates are the order of the day. By means of a little barging I have managed to secure the stove next to Dott’s. It is usually Chellow’s place of work, and the man gives me a boysing about it, but I explain the breach of protocol in a manner that all us inmates comprehend:
Man and I’ve got beef, bruv.
Chellow nods. You wouldn’t be doing nothing stoopid now, Alfreth, would you? he warns me in his sternest-but- wouldn’t-scare-a-sparrow-type tones.
Need to link man, is all, I reply.
The Cookery Gov wants to demo. Ordinarily I enjoy this part of the lesson—as a rule I like to learn—but this time it’s all but unendurable. I can’t wait to chat to Dott. We’re doing chick fricassee. I already know how to make it. Gov understands this and wants to elicit responses from me in the way that a good teacher does. I play along. Perhaps because the class is still on a sort of probationary period, the first part of the lesson is conducted in verbal silence. And this is no use to me. I can’t stand it. So, as I say. No one kicks off in the Cookery class, but disagreements are the order of the day.