Page 14 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

none of us even realised that was what we were doing. I don’t even
remember there being an issue when I started attending the local
Church of England primary school.
We only went to a mosque for the major religious festivals, as
my father wasn’t a particularly religious man. He believed, but he
didn’t practise, and so it must have been my mother who arranged
for us to get the little bit of Islamic schooling that I remember. We
were sent to a house nearby where we were taught a bit of Arabic
and the most important prayers and key teachings from the Koran.
In our house, my father was the disciplinarian, and his word was
law. If we gave him any trouble, or answered back, we’d get a
telling off. He was also very protective of my sister, and while my
brother and I could do pretty much what we wanted as long as we
were home by a certain time, my sister had less freedom. He was
in control of everything in the house because he saw that as part
of his role as the head of the household. So it was my father who
did the shopping because he saw it as his job to make sure that we
were getting good cuts of meat, and it would have been his
decision to buy a new fridge or redecorate a room if he thought
we needed it and could afford it.
My memories of him from those years are of a slim, smartly
dressed man who had always washed and shaved by the time he
got us out of bed in the morning. He wasn’t a very demonstrative
man, but even though he wasn’t tactile with us we were in no
doubt that he loved us. He would have done anything for us:
nothing was more important to him than his family, and every
decision he made was intended to guarantee our security and
opportunities. The problem with my dad’s decisions was that they
were almost always final. Once he had made up his mind, that was
it, and there was no pleading with him to change his decision.
My mother was much softer and very caring. She was the one
we would run to if we were hurt and needed a cuddle, and she was
always the one who checked that we’d done our homework, or

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