Return to Cairo

     Jonathan Pinnock       

I catch Danny just as he’s leaving for work. He’s getting into that crappy little car of his when I call out to him, “Oi, Dans, get us some sand, will you? It’s for Nan.”

            He shakes his head. “What? No way. I’m fucking late as it is, and Mario’ll kill me.”

            Danny works in a shitty burger joint over in Middleton. I don’t why he doesn’t get a better job. Well I do, really. It’s because he’s thick and lazy.

            “Oh, please, Dans. For Nan.”

            “No. It’s stupid, and anyway why can’t you get Mum to get some?”

            He really is dim sometimes. Mum works at Arkwrights all day long, packing stuff, and then she goes off to clean offices in the evenings. The rest of the time, she sleeps. All so’s we can have a university education, she says. Well, Danny didn’t take up the offer. Tosser.

            “You know fucking well why I can’t ask Mum.”

            “Don’t swear, little sis,” says Danny. “And I’ve got to go. So no deal.” He starts to close the car door.

            OK, time to play my ace. “You know Saffron Henderson?”

            The door opens again like a shot. “What’s it to you?”

            “Her sister’s in my class this year. Could put a word in for you.”

            You can almost see the cogs ticking. Finally, he rolls his eyes. “All right, then. I’ll go to B&Q when I finish tonight.”

            “Good boy. Mind you get that nice smooth silver sand. The stuff they use in sandpits.”

            “Yeah, whatever.” And he drives off, as fast as a twenty-year-old Micra can go, with black smoke belching out the back. He’s such an embarrassment.

            Still, mission accomplished.

“Your Nan still think she’s in Cairo?” says Lorna Henderson, after she’s agreed to make the introduction.

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s cool,” she says. “Well, for her, anyway. Must be a nightmare for you lot.”

            “Yeah. It’s weird as shit.”

            “Funny. I can’t imagine my Nan ever going to Cairo.”

            “Me neither. I used to think the furthest she’d ever got from here was Margate. She never wanted to come to Spain with us, ’cos of the food.”

            “My Nan lives in a home. Don’t think she’s very happy there. Stinks of piss.”

            “Aw, that’s sad.”

            “Yeah. I don’t want to get old.”

            “Me neither.”

            “When my time’s up, y’know what I want to do?” Lorna looks dreamy for a moment. “I want to jump out of a burning plane, naked, with no parachute, strapped to Johnny Depp.”

            We both snigger. The bell goes for the next lesson. Lorna’s cool.

I don’t know how we ended up with Nan living with us. It’s hard enough for Mum coping with Danny and me, but Nan’s getting more and more difficult all the time. Not that Mum notices. She’s so tired when she gets in, she’s in a little world of her own. It’s me who ends up dealing with Nan. And I’m the one she says it to.

            “Want to go back to Cairo.”

            “What? Can you lift your leg a bit more?” I’m trying to change her catheter bag. The district nurse explained to me how to do it, but I’m still getting the hang of it.

            “I said I want to go back to Cairo. Liked it there.”

            “Nan, you’ve never been to Cairo,” I say. “Have you?”

            “Have. Nice place. Hot. Full of Arabs, y’know.”

            “Nan, you’ve never been abroad. You haven’t even got a passport.”

            “Have.”

            “No you haven’t.”

            “Want to go back to Cairo.”

Danny thinks it’s really funny. Which is surprising really, because I very much doubt if he has a clue where Cairo is.

            “She keeps going on about it every time I’m in with her. If you spent more time with – ”

            “Watch it, sis. I’ve got a job to go to.”

            “And I’ve got homework to do.”

            “What’s that?”

            “Something you never bothered with, obviously.”

            “Listen, brainbox. I get my education at the University of Life. Worth far more than a fucking degree.”

            I’m just about to tell him that he’d probably fail to get a place even there, when the front door opens and Mum comes in. She looks tired as usual.

            “When was Nan in Cairo, Mum?” I say.

            “What?”

            “Nan. In Cairo.”

            “Dunno. Never mentioned it to me. Why?”

            “Says she wants to go back there.”

            Mum laughs. “Well, I’m not paying for the air fare.”

            Then I have my idea. It’s a brilliantly simple idea. But when I explain it to Mum and Danny, they both think I’m the biggest idiot in Idiot Street in Idiot Town.

            “Do what?” they both say.

            I shrug. “I just meant we could pretend she’s in Cairo. It’s not much to do for her, is it?”

            “But how?”

The first thing to do is turn the heating up. It’s the beginning of summer anyway, but I get every heater in the house into Nan’s room and switch them all on full.

            “It’s hot,” she says.

            “’Course it’s hot, Nan. You’re in a hot country.”

            “Where am I?”

            “In Cairo, of course.”

            “Doesn’t look like Cairo.”

            “That’s because you’re inside.”

            “Doesn’t sound like Cairo.”

            “That’s because –” Sod it. “You’re not quite there yet,” I say.

            This is going to take a little more work than I’d bargained on. Next day after school, I go down to the library and have a look in the World Music section. Jesus, there’s some weird stuff there, I can tell you. But I find this thing called “Arabian Moods” which looks promising. I take it home, and put it on in Nan’s room, and she perks up a little.

            “What’s that?” she says.

            “It’s Egyptian music.”

            “Are we there yet?”

            “Almost.”

            The next thing I do is sneak into Dan’s room and nick some of that incense that his last girlfriend, Moonbeam, left behind. I know. Don’t worry. She didn’t last long. Even he realised she was mental.

            So we’ve got heat, music and incense. Nan is getting the full-on Middle Eastern ambience.

            “Still don’t think we’re in Cairo,” she says.

Lorna thinks we should have the call to prayer going out at regular intervals throughout the day. I’m not too sure how we’d manage this.

            “You can get it piped in from the mosque, you know.”

            “Bollocks,” I say.

            “It’s true. The Khans next door get it.”

            “How do you know?”

            She rolls her eyes. “’Cos we hear it going off at five o’clock in the bleeding morning. The walls are dead thin.”

            “Oh. ’Spect you have to be a Muslim, though.”

            “Yeah. You could pretend you are.”

            “I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”
            “Nah. ’Spose not.”

            Then I show her my diagram. She bursts out laughing.

            “You’re kidding,” she says.

            “No. I’m dead serious.”

            “Well, if you really want that made, I know the bloke who can do it. He’s a total geek, but he’s ace at metalwork.” She turns round towards an Asian kid in thick glasses who’s sitting a few tables away. “Oi, Slumdog! Come here!” The boy glances nervously around and then heads over in our direction.

            “This is Slumdog,” she says. He winces. “Show him your picture,” she says to me.

            I give it to him. He gives a serious nod and then says, “When do you want it?”

            “Er … you sure?”

            “Of course. So when do you want it?”

            “Er … next week?”

            “Sure. No problem.” He takes my piece of paper and goes off.

            “I think he likes you,” says Lorna.

He turns out to be called Parthipan, and he’s as good as his word. The machine that he comes up with is even better than I’d planned. Basically, you feed the sand into a chute at the top, and it slowly trickles through a tube until it hits the fan, at which point it gets scattered in all directions. When he brings it round, Nan is thrilled.

            “We are in Cairo, aren’t we?” she says when she gets the first few grains of sand in her face.

            “Yes, we are.” Although, to be honest, I’m getting more than a little sick of that Arabian Moods CD. I say so to Parthipan.

            “What you need are some street sounds,” he says.

            “Could you do that?”

            “Of course. Just need to find some effects somewhere and rig up the CD on continuous play. I’ll see what I can do.”

            “What about the call to prayer? Could you rig that up too?”

            “Hold on. Do you think I’m a Muslim or something?”

            “Well, no,” I say, “I s’pose you’re a Hindu, but I thought – ”

            “I’m not even a Hindu.”

            “Really?”

            “My parents are Christians. They’re from Tamil Nadu in the south of India. A lot of the people there are Christians, you know.”

            “Oh.”

            Then, all of a sudden, Nan pipes up. “Oi, who’s that Arab boy?”

            We both freeze.

            “Er … sorry, Nan?”

            “The brown boy. Who’s the Arab?”

            I whisper to Parthipan, “I think she means you.”

            “No flipping way,” he whispers back.

            “Please?” This is embarrassing, but I really don’t want to upset Nan. There is a look of panic in his eyes. I nudge him.

            “Er … can I help you?” he says to Nan eventually.

            “Do the accent,” I hiss at him. He glares back at me. But to my amazement, he does try to put on a cod Middle Eastern accent, and I’m thinking this is so unbelievably wrong in so many different ways. In fact, he puts on a totally brilliant performance, and Nan laps it up.

            “Thanks,” I say to him as he is leaving.

            “One thing,” says Parthipan. “Please don’t ever do that to me again. Ever.”

But a week or so later, he’s back. He needs to run some maintenance checks on the sand machine. He’s also brought with him an MP3 player with a whole day’s worth of street sounds that he’s put together, including – woo hoo! – the call to prayer at regular intervals. He also tells me that a friend of a friend reckons he can get hold of a dodgy Sky box with a free subscription to Al Jazeera. I haven’t a clue what Al Jazeera is, so he tells me that it’s basically Channel Al Qa’eda.

            “Cool,” I say. Nan’ll like that. I’ve been busy too. I’ve decided to supplement Nan’s meals with some Middle Eastern extras. Actually, all I’ve managed to get hold of so far are some things called Falafels, and she doesn’t like them much. Too greasy.

            Anyway, Parthipan’s just about to leave when Nan notices him again. This time, he tries to make for the door before he gets asked to perform, but it’s too late. She calls out to him, “Oi! You! Arab boy! Come here and talk to me.” He gives me a pleading look, and then gives in.

            “What can I do for you, Miss?” he says, going over to her.

            “Well, you can tell me one thing for a start,” she says. “Why don’t you wear Egyptian dress like all the other boys?”

             If looks could kill. Because he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

            There’s a bit of an atmosphere between us when Parthipan leaves. As he’s going out of the front door, Danny comes back in.

            “Who’s your boyfriend?” he says.

            “Piss off,” I say.

It’s called a djellaba, and it’s dead easy to make out of a couple of old sheets. I ask Parthipan if I can measure him up, but he puts his foot down this time. He says it’s insulting. And I sort of begin to see his point. But he still comes round quite often to talk to Nan. I think he quite likes her, although she says some really dodgy things to him. Sometimes I try to tell her that she can’t say that, but I suppose things were different in her day.

            One day, Parthipan invites me round his house and get to meet his mum and dad. They’re really nice, and his mum cooks some wicked food. She tells me that she thinks what I’m doing for Nan is really good, and she says it’s so nice to see me caring for her like that. So many of you white people just put their old people in homes, she says, and then she seems a bit embarrassed for saying it. But I know what she means.

“What are you up to with Slumdog?” says Lorna.

            “None of your business,” I say. “And don’t call him Slumdog. It’s racist.”

            “No it isn’t.”

            “Yes it is, and anyway his name’s Parthipan.”

            “Well if I was called something stupid like Parthipan I wouldn’t worry about being called Slumdog.”

            “Yeah, well you’re stupid and all.”

            “Fuck you. And my sister says your brother’s gay.”

            “Yeah? Well he says she’s a right fucking slag.”

            And then the bell goes and we go to the next lesson. I’ve gone off Lorna. And her sister is definitely a slag.

For the next few months, we get into a sort of routine, Parthipan, me and Nan. He comes over and pretends to be Egyptian, with the heating turned full up and the joss sticks smoking away, whilst Al Jazeera plays on the telly in the corner and MP3 player makes busy street sounds. Nan’s as happy as I’ve know her for years. She hasn’t a clue what time of day it is, only that she’s in Cairo, where she’s always wanted to be.

            And then one day she doesn’t seem to be quite a strong as she once was and I realise that she’s been declining for quite some time. All of a sudden she says, “I want to go home.” I look at Parthipan and he looks back at me. We nod at each other, and then we quietly turn off the heating, stub out the incense and switch the television and the MP3 player off.

            “Want to go to sleep now.”

Parthipan holds my hand all the way through the funeral. I glance up every now and then, and there are tears rolling down his cheeks. We give her a lovely send-off, with “Arabian Moods” playing as her coffin rolls into the furnace. It’s what she would have wanted.

            Afterwards, I get chatting to my Great Aunt Mabel, and I ask her about Nan going to Cairo. She laughs.

            “Don’t be daft. She never left England.” Then she pauses for a moment. “Nah, the nearest she ever got was a cup of tea in the Cairo Café in the old arcade. You’re probably too young to remember it, aren’t you? Nice little place. Pictures of the pyramids on the walls. Used to do lovely macaroons.”

            I smile to myself. I guess I knew all along. But you know what? One day I’m going to go to Egypt and see for myself. I like the sound of the place.

©2009 Jonathan Pinnock.  Reproduced with permission of the author.