East of Wimbledon Read Free

to him in Polish.
    ‘Oh God, yes,’ said Mr Malik with some enthusiasm, ‘the classics! Virgil. Homer. Horace. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Longfellow.’
    He was heading back towards the school. Just to the right of the back door Robert noticed four or five battered wooden desks, piled crazily on top of one another. Malik waved at them. He seemed to feel that they spoke for themselves. As they went back into the hall, he said, ‘Do you have a blue?’
    A blue what?
thought Robert.
    Malik’s eyes narrowed.
    Robert considered a moment, then said swiftly, ‘Cricket. Rugby football.’
    ‘Well, Wilson,’ said Mr Malik, ‘we will take up references, of course. But I think we may well find ourselves working together at the beginning of the first term. I like the cut of your jib!’
    ‘Well, Mr Malik,’ said Robert, ‘I like the cut of
your
jib!’
    ‘Yes indeed,’ said the headmaster – ‘it is not a bad jib!’
    He went, with some solemnity, to a cupboard next to the door leading to the smallest of the classrooms. ‘You will work here,’ he said – ‘with the very small boys.’ From one of the shelves he took a small, leatherbound volume. With some ceremony he handed it to Robert. ‘You will have a copy of this, of course,’ he said, ‘but I offer it as a gift. I will be in touch as regards our terms of employment.’
    He stared deep into Robert’s eyes.
    ‘Payment is on a cash basis,’ he said. ‘I like you, Wilson. I want to work with you!’
    He put his hand on Robert’s arm and pushed his face so close that their noses were almost touching. ‘I think you have a good attitude!’ he said throatily.
    Then he went to the door, flung it open and sent Robert out into the glare of the August afternoon.
    It was not until he was at the door of the Frog and Ferret that Robert looked at his present. It was an edition of the Koran, translated by N. J. Dawood. Slipping it under his jacket, he walked up to the bar and ordered a large whisky.

2
    He had got it out and was looking at it furtively when Mr Malik walked in and glared fiercely around. Robert shrank behind a pillar, and, to his relief, the headmaster did not appear to have seen him. He watched, as the headmaster strode up to the bar, tapped it imperiously with the edge of a fifty-pence piece, and said, in a loud, clear voice, ‘A pint of Perrier water, if you please!’
    The barman unwound himself from his stool and walked over to his customer. He muttered something, and Malik, addressing his reply to the whole pub, said, ‘A pint. A bottle. Whatever. I am parched!’
    Robert drained his whisky and shrank down into his chair. As soon as Malik turned back to the bar, he would make a run for it. Did he have a peppermint about his person?
    No.
    Malik gave no sign of turning back to the bar. He had the same, grand proprietorial attitude to the Frog and Ferret as he did to the Wimbledon Islamic Day Boys’ Independent School. ‘My mouth,’ he said fruitily to the assembled company, ‘is as dry as a camel’s arse!’
    No one seemed very interested in this. Robert recognized Vera ‘Got All the Things There’ Loomis over in the corner, smacking her lips over a glass of Guinness. Over by the window was Norbert Coveney, the brother of the man who had died in the Rush poisoning case three years ago. He did not seem pleased to see Mr Malik. The barman poured two bottles of Perrier into a pint glass, with almost offensive slowness.
    Malik eyed him hungrily and then, with a theatrical flourish, turned back to the almost deserted pub. ‘Give a poor wog a drink, for Christ’s sake!’
    The inmates of the Frog and Ferret did not respond to this. Although, thought Robert, from the look of them they would not have been much impressed had Malik yanked out his chopper and laid it on the bar as a testament of his good faith. Standing by the door with a pint of porter in his hand was Lewis Wansell, the downwardly mobile dentist, popularly known as ‘Die Screaming in