Incredible stories from the edge

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The story of Kerman

Before I set sail

Class of '87

Kerman was the last major stop before the central desert. To the south towered the lofty Jupar Mountains, home to the fierce winds that baked the town in summer and froze it in winter. To the north lay the empty wastelands of the mighty Kavir-i-Lut over which I would soon have to pass to reach Mashad.
I stayed in a cheap hotel, half of which was painted blue, the other half left bare. The owner was a small Zoroastrian man who hated blue, but his wife, a giantess, had chosen the colour while he was away. He wanted red, the colour of the eternal flame so sacred to his religion. She didn’t. And there for the moment the matter lay.

‘Do you know the story of Kerman?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said.

‘About the Worm?’

The Worm was the legendary kirm, said to be of immense size. It brought wealth and prosperity to the community, and for this reason the district was called Kerman, ‘Land of the Worm’. The Sasanian king Ardashir was told by his astrologers that he would never subdue Kerman with force, not while the creature remained alive. Its magic was too strong. On the strength of this Ardashir gave up his military expeditions and disguised himself as a merchant. He then procured a large number of cases, filled some with rice, others with lead and others again with armed men, then set out for the Worm’s village. He pleaded with the worshippers to be given the honour of feeding the Worm and when they agreed Ardashir lit a great fire on which he cooked the rice and melted the lead. When all was ready, the creature devoured the rice, and when it opened its mouth for more, the king poured the molten lead down its throat. In agony, the Worm gave such an exceptional leap into the air that it disappeared from view, landed in Bam 125 miles away, and exploded with earth-shattering force. Ardashir released his armed followers from their cases and with their aid he easily subdued the votaries of the Worm, taking possession of the whole district.

The hotel owner didn’t realise the relevance of the story to his own situation. His wife ruled the roost, while he claimed to be king. She was the Worm. He was Ardashir. I couldn’t help but feel that this time the Worm would win.

It’s early, Monday morning, and I’m on my way to jump on a boat and sail to Vanuatu. It’s a Lagoon 46, luxurious to say the least, and a far cry from the inter city bus that’s taking me to it in Marsden Cove. We stop at a diner half way, and a dozen passengers make they way slowly inside for a coffee. The smokers sit outside on metal chairs at small, red-topped tables, including a lady in a black dress wearing a silver plastic tiara. She’s queen of the road, with a half eaten meat pie and a flat white.

‘You know who I am,’ she smiles.

It’s not a question, but a statement. I nod towards her crown perched amongst an unruly mop of dark hair, and she looks pleased that I’ve noticed. No point in being royalty if no one cares.

5 minutes later the bus driver is herding everyone back onboard.

‘C’mon Queenie,’ he winks, ‘time to get you to your castle.’

She wraps the pie up in a handkerchief and slips it into her handbag, takes a last slug of coffee then saunters off towards the bus.

Under her breath she replies: ‘Don’t you rush me. I’ll raise your bloody taxes.’

I’ll get there early and sit in the corner of the Nellie Dean near Soho Square, my old local, or should I say ‘ours’ because that’s where the creative department used to go at lunchtimes, circa 1987. Admittedly, the Bathhouse was another favourite, and the Pillars of Hercules, but the Nellie was closest, and sometimes word would come in that Max Henry, our Creative Director, known (un)affectionately as ‘Max the Axe’ was looking for his creative teams. Then it was a quick jog back to the agency, feeling the slosh of the pint you just sculled in your stomach, as you also remembered how he got that nickname. Max fired creatives on Fridays like hot dinners, especially if they weren’t back in the office when he returned from one of his long lunches at Escargot.

I never did get fired by Max, but a few others weren’t so lucky. Some of them will be arriving soon, faces I haven’t seen in nearly 40 years. Terry, Sean, Earnie, maybe even the art director whose name escapes me, but who collected guns and was livid when the government banned AK47’s after that guy went nuts with one in Hungerford, West Berkshire. The things I remember from back then. His face was puce with rage as I’d reminded him about the 15 people the nutter had killed with a military rifle.

‘That’s not the point. It’s the bloody Tories telling us how to live our flippin’ lives.’

Good guy, never married though, which is hardly surprising when he spent all his time at shooting ranges.

I hope Terry comes too. Tel had a house in Majorca with a fireplace, over which was inscribed onto a large bronze plate Donated by: before it listed all the ad agencies he’d freelanced at, and there were many. We were all staff, but Tel was a born and bred freelancer. He played the game, paid less tax, knew every expenses trick in the book, and was easily the canniest art director of the lot. Tel would knock out a layout in a few minutes, then slide it inside his A3 drawing pad before starting a new one, slow-ly. Account service guys would rush in, asking, ‘How’s my layout Tel, c’mon, client’s here soon mate.’

‘Alright, alright,’ Tel would say, ‘keep your ‘air on.’

But in the last minute before it was due, and with client service freaking out, old Terry would slide out the finished one and say something to the ‘suit’ like: ‘I’ve done my bit now go sell it!’

Genius. He was a bloody legend old Terry.

The there was Earnie, another artist who made his living in advertising because it ‘pays the bills Rick.’

Everyone called me that, and I was never too sure why. Aged 25, that was who I was in London, and still am to a whole load of people. But Earnie was special because he knew the guy who’d invented Spot the Dog, and every day Earnie was dreaming up a character who might do as well. There was a tortoise I recall, drawn in a myriad of poses, and so I can’t help but wonder if he’d cracked it in the end. 36 years is a long time. I’d love it if he did. I’d like nothing more than to see Earnie pull up in a Rolls Royce with a license plate ‘Tortis’ and walk into the Nellie with his trademark smile bursting forth from his big bushy beard.

Anyway, I’ll get there early and sit in the corner and find out. I’ll nurse a pint of lager and look out the window at Soho streaming by. It’ll be hot, there’s a heatwave on, short sleeves and pretty dresses will flow past, but the faces I’ll be looking for won’t be the young ones, they’ll be old: whiskery, craggy, flushed possibly, from having been crammed into the Underground with a million others. Thirsty too. Those boys could drink, and at two quid a pint it didn’t blow the budget. Well, not Tel’s budget anyway.

‘Freelancers eh, absolutely rolling in it,’ Sean would say, in his thick East Ender accent, forged on the streets within the sound of Bow bells. I wonder what happened to him too. I heard he scored a big agency job in ‘89, around about the time I was in Afghanistan (ironically surrounded by AK-47s), masquerading as a BBC journalist and trying not to get shot by the Russians. I actually hope he arrives in a Roller too. The Cockney geezer, done good. Earnie the artist, done good. Tel, done even better my son!

Won’t be long now. Not if I get there early.

In the high passes of Northern Pakistan, boundaries exist only on paper. The wind carries no passport, and the dust settles equally on both sides of the wire.

Richard Loseby, Kunjareb Pass Notebook