Worlds Apart: A Muslim Girl with the SAS

179 Pages·2014·0.84 MB·English

by  Azi Ahmed

I would like to dedicate this book
to my parents and sister
This book is based on the experiences and recollections of the
author. In some cases, people, places, procedures and dates have
been changed to protect the privacy and security of others.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
1 Northern Beginnings
2 Breaking Away
3 The Big City
4 Female Selection
5 Alpha Females
6 The Other World
7 Joining the Lads
8 The Hills
9 My New Buddy
10 Learning the Ropes
11 A Life in Progress
Acknowledgements
Copyright
PROLOGUE
‘OH YES, MY daughter’s a very good cook.’ Mum smiled at the three guests
sat on the floral sofa.
I pulled the headscarf tight around my head and hobbled over to serve
them chai. I knelt down at the coffee table. My knees were swollen to the size
of grapefruits underneath my shalwar. The bruises on my arms were hidden
by a long-sleeved kameez and my blistered feet were bandaged and covered
up with socks. So far, my parents were none the wiser about these marks and
bruises, and I wanted to keep it that way.
People coming over to eye me up didn’t worry me as much as it used to. I
had a very clear view of what I didn’t want, but for some reason I still went
along with it. I kept telling myself, be normal, be normal, be normal; Mum
has a sixth sense.
One of the guests, a man called Majid, reached for a samosa from the plate
I’d put down in front of him. He looked about fifty, dark, had a pot-holed
complexion with a mop of black oily hair. My eyes slid across to his wife who
wore large tinted glasses and a white shawl wrapped around her head and
shoulders. The combination of her strong musky perfume and Mum’s air
freshener almost knocked me out.
Their son was nestled between them, looking too scared to move. He was a
younger-looking version of his father with a potbelly and goggly eyes.
‘I’m sure your daughter is a very good cook.’ Majid spoke to my mum as
if I was invisible. ‘But will she cook for Rajas?’
Mum suddenly sat up straight in the armchair. Rajas were one of the
highest castes in Pakistan, something villagers like us don’t get close to under
normal circumstances. But this wasn’t normal; this was England. She traced
her aubergine lips with an Aztec gold fingernail before answering. ‘Rest
assured, brother, my daughter is not the modern type. She attends mosque
every day, prays five times, doesn’t go out alone…’
It is amazing the lengths parents go to make their children sparkle in front
of others.
I glanced at my dad, who was sitting by the bay window, gazing out at the
traffic. As always, he was dressed in his dapper way; crisp beige shirt, hand-
knitted cream pullover and Jesus sandals with thick white sports socks. I
admired his tolerance; nothing ever got to him and he completely ignored
people that talked too much, including Mum. He was my tower of strength.
Majid suddenly roared with laughter at something Mum had said. Mum
joined in. Her giggles escalated into squeals, making her sparkly headscarf
slip down to expose her frizzy black hair, tied back in a peach pearl bobble.
Majid reached out to Dad, offering him a low five, who in return stared at
the hand glistening in oil and bits of pastry from the samosa. He smacked it
politely, making Majid roar even louder and elbow his son.
The room became quiet again. Majid began picking the food from between
his teeth with a fingernail. I could tell Mum was racking her brains for
something to say. She didn’t like gaps in conversation.
‘What did your daughter study at college?’ Majid asked.
‘Art,’ Mum said.
‘Art? What’s that?’
‘It’s a degree.’
Shaking his head, Majid reached into his pocket and brought out a packet
of cigarettes. ‘If I had a daughter, I would never let her leave home to study.
This country is very bad for our girls.’
‘That depends how much you trust your children,’ Mum retorted,
struggling out of the armchair and over to the smoked glass wall cabinet for an
ashtray.
I slowly stirred the sugar in the cups, wanting to ram the spoon down
Majid’s throat. I wondered what his reaction would be if he knew I was in the
army, yomping a rucksack up a hill and eating out of a mess tin. The thought
made my mouth curl up at the ends.
I noticed Majid’s wife hadn’t touched the cup of tea I’d put in front of her.
Behind those dark glasses I had no idea who she was looking at, but I’d
decided she didn’t like me. Her arms were plastered in gold bangles so I knew
that status and appearance were her two driving factors. Every now and then,
her head would twitch towards Mum’s homemade curtains and matching
cushions.
Majid waved a match out, caught in time by an ashtray Mum was holding,
then he wrapped his fingers around the cigarette like a hookah and puffed a
cloud of blue smoke into the clean air.
‘And Kashif?’ Mum coughed – she was standing above him. ‘Does your
son have a degree?’
Majid took a long drag before making the announcement. ‘My Kashif runs
the family business with me.’
‘Business.’ Mum’s eyes sparkled across the room at Dad who was still
gazing out of the window. ‘Very good. What business is that?’
‘We own two market stalls selling ladies’ fashion shoes. I run one
enterprise at Ashton market and my son runs the other in Rochdale.’
Majid turned and smacked my dad on his back. ‘So, brother, are you a
businessman?’
Dad cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘we have the kebab shop next
door and I run a butcher’s shop…’
‘These samosas have come fresh from the shop.’ Mum pointed at the
empty plate. ‘Last week I invented a new curry which is hotter than a
vindaloo.’
Majid looked impressed. ‘What is it called?’
‘Tindaloo.’
I began to gather the empty plates to fill the uncomfortable silence.
‘Are you thinking of expanding your butcher business?’ Majid asked Dad,
stubbing the cigarette out and lighting another.
‘Well … there is a mini store next door run by a Hindi man…’
Majid cracked up his laugher, rising to hyena pitch. ‘You should offer him
a piece of cow meat from your shop. That will get him out.’
Dad looked over at Mum then back at Majid. ‘We get on well. Better than
our Bangladeshi friends back in the factory days. The war was going on over
there, and here we wouldn’t speak to each other.’
Majid nodded. ‘Yes … tough times.’ Majid took another drag on his
cigarette. ‘It’s all that Bhutto’s fault. If he hadn’t been elected we’d still own
East Pakistan. Thank goodness his daughter was thrown out otherwise she’d
have given the rest away to that Bush man.’
‘Benazir is a very clever woman,’ Mum said. ‘Oxford-educated, I hear.’
Dad spoke softly. ‘When I was fourteen, I was handed a gun and put on the
front line, not knowing whether I would live or die. These days, all the youth
care about is who made their trainers.’
I looked at up Dad, feeling frustrated that I couldn’t tell him about my
other world. I understand you! I wanted to scream out.
‘They’ll soon find out when they get married.’ Majid glanced round at his
son who was now looking down at his hands. ‘A clip round the ear hole will
sort them out. I saw something on telly the other day where American children
were taking their parents to court for disciplining them. Can you believe it?
Allah knows what our grandchildren will turn out like…’
I closed my eyes to his noise and thought back to the training. The next
phase was the hills. I was petrified, petrified of failing. This regiment was now
a part of me. It was where I belonged. It wasn’t just about earning a sandy
beret; it meant so much more. It would mark a great leap forward, change
people’s views on religion, gender and the future role of the Special Forces,
and I was not giving up even if it killed me.
CHAPTER ONE
NORTHERN BEGINNINGS
MY FATHER DIED three days after New Year in January 2011. I’d received a
call from Pakistan in the early hours of the morning. I thought I’d be
hysterical, have a breakdown or at least be sad. Instead, I put the phone down
and went out to do my weekly shopping at the local supermarket.
I couldn’t figure out exactly what I was feeling until I got back, and then I
realised what it was: regret. Regret that I’d never told him who I really was or
what I had become. Would he have been proud that I’d followed in his
footsteps, or disappointed that I’d not fulfilled the daughter role? But none of
this mattered any more as I would never know.
My father’s death brought back flickers of my childhood. Dad came over
to England in the 1960s, as a veteran of the British Indian Army and a soldier
for the Pakistani Army during the 1947 partition. He was fourteen when he
joined the army. He made his friends there and then watched them be killed
one by one. He hardly spoke of his time in the military, other than the lethal
roles given to soldiers during the war of Pakistan’s Independence, where they
had to stuff grenades into the smocks of their buddy soldiers selected to be
thrown under a tank of four enemy soldiers.
My three brothers were born in Pakistan and they came over with Mum
once Dad could afford reasonable accommodation to raise a family with
money earned from his job in the cotton factory. Then my sister and I were
born here. I was the youngest of five.
I grew up in a two-up two-down, accommodating seven of us. The front
room was south facing and had the sun coming through all day, but it was
only ever opened for guests, mainly men. It smelt of plastic and the only noise
came from kids playing out on the front street. The three-piece sofa set looked
like it had hardly been sat on, the coffee table was covered in an embroidered
white tablecloth in case it got dusty and the black and white television sat in
the corner of the room was never switched on in case it broke.
The women who visited would sit in the back room with their kids. It was