Discipline 10. DISCIPLINE Fahim was still awake half an hour later when his parents began arguing downstairs. He couldn’t hear properly from his bed so he crept closer to the doors and opened a small crack. ‘The boy needs discipline,’ Hassam said determinedly. ‘I’ll speak to my father.’ Fahim’s heart rate surged when he heard this. ‘I’ll ask them to recommend a school,’ his father continued, ‘somewhere close to my family.’ ‘We’ve always agreed that our son would stay here and have a proper English education,’ Yasmin said firmly. ‘I want him here, not thousands of miles away in Abu Dhabi.’ ‘I can’t bear to look at Fahim,’ Hassam shouted. ‘With his Nikes and his Playstation, growing fat on Rolos and chocolate chip cookies. He knows nothing of his own culture or people.’ Yasmin laughed. ‘And how are his Nikes and Playstation different from your Rolexes and BMWs? You pretend you’re such a good Muslim when you visit your father, but you don’t own a prayer mat, you don’t observe Ramadan and you’ve never even set foot inside a mosque in this country.’ ‘You can’t speak to me like this,’ Hassam shouted again, pounding his fist into his palm and making Fahim shudder with fright.
