The Reed Flute

After long, separate journeys, an Iraqi grandfather and his granddaughter arrive in England. They live with a relation in Great Yarmouth but find their new circumstances confusing and uncertain, causing the girl to take drastic action. In Norwich a widower is trying to build himself a new life, and his bird watching and oboe playing become routes to unexpected meetings and events.

The Reed Flute vividly depicts a winter journey upstream along the bank of the Yare in which the three main characters are nourished as much by the slow river and the subtle beauty of Broadland as by memory, hope and faith.

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ISBN 0-9543627-1-3
Cover design by Roland West

Extract from The Reed Flute

Abbas is an Iraqi refugee who is walking with Khadija, his grand-daughter from Great Yarmouth to Norwich along the Yare….

I ease myself up from where I have slept because I must pray properly. This morning I did not set out my prayer mat, for it would have become sodden, but now it has stopped raining and there is more light. I slip my shoes on, tuck the laces in and walk carefully, avoiding rubble and dung. I make my way over the uneven ground to the doorway and see the green bank that lies between us and the expanse of water we are following. To my left three cows stand on the bank. They are smaller than buffaloes, and the sound they make is not as sad as the sound that buffaloes make. The sun is hidden, but brightness is coming from high in the sky, so it must be at least midday. I go back inside for my prayer mat which is in a plastic bag above Khadija, near the food. As I reach up for it she coughs again. She has been coughing all morning.
I walk up the bank and there in front of me is the inland sea. It gladdens me. Because I am old now and my eyesight is poor, the water disappears away in each direction, to my left, to my right and straight ahead. Behind me is the round tower, and behind that are green and brown fields, with their floods that look like wide knives.
I spread the plastic bag on the flat top of the bank, and then lay my mat on top of it. I turn to the south east, kneel and pray. I recite some of the ayyas, and I give thanks to Allah whom I obey in all things. Each time I raise my upper body, the wind blows against my face. Each time I lean forward, I feel it on the back of my neck. When I have finished I shut my eyes and wait. I do not know what I wait for, but something will come. Something always comes.
Wind runs through the grass, and past me, and through the openings in the round tower. Little rills of water must be curling against the bank because I hear slight, wet slaps. A loose board in the fence is flapping. A train passes in the distance. A cow coughs.
And then I hear geese. I hear them call as they are disturbed and rise up, and I know they must be peeling off the ground to join those already in the air. Their wings approach and their calls fill my ears. I open my eyes and look above me, and there they go in a great mass sweeping across the grey sky.
I lower my head, for I have not heard or seen these things for many years, and I am moved.

To Allah belongs the east and the west.
Whichever way you turn there is the face of Allah.

And then I remember all the geese in all the marshes of my boyhood. I remember punting through the reeds at dawn with my father and brother. Out there, geese would rise up and fly past us at speed, making for the open lake. We would pause and look up at their beating wings, their glidings, the patterns they made against the pale sky.

Yesterday two big white birds flew past us, close enough for me to see them clearly, but I did not know them. They were not storks, or pelicans, or egrets or ibis. I hoped I would dream of them, but I did not. And now I have found geese again, here, in a foreign place where I do not belong. I do not know what these things mean, but they hearten me.