The Invisible Crowd
The Invisible Crowd
Ellen Wiles
‘A fierce, big-hearted novel.’ Joe Treasure, author of The Book of Air‘Pushes us to find our kinder selves.’ Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You‘A wonderful book.’ Maurice Wren, Chief Executive of the Refugee CouncilOne of the Guardian’s Readers’ Books of the YearLong listed for Not the Booker PrizeAwarded the Victor Turner Prize in 20182nd March 1975In Asmara, Eritrea, Yonas Kelati is born into a world of turmoil. At the same time, on the same day, Jude Munroe takes her first breath in London, England.Thirty Years LaterBlacklisted in his war-ravaged country, Yonas has no option but to flee his home. After a terrible journey, he arrives on a bleak English coast.By a twist of fate, Yonas’ asylum case lands on Jude’s desk. Opening the file, she finds a patchwork of witness statements from those who met Yonas along his journey: a lifetime the same length of hers, reduced to a few scraps of paper.Soon, Jude will stand up in court and tell Yonas’ story. How she tells it will change his life forever.Fearless, uplifting and compelling, The Invisible Crowd is a powerful debut novel about loyalty, kindness – and the brief moments which define our lives.Amazon reviewers love The Invisible Crowd:‘One of the best novels I’ve read this year.’‘I found myself absorbed from page one.’‘A delight to read while also being thought provoking and super relevant.’‘Beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant, I highly recommend it.’‘A debut novel with a huge heart.’‘The Invisible Crowd is compelling from the first page and will pull your heart kicking and screaming through the turmoil of finding a home, safety, and love.’
ELLEN WILES was born in 1981 and grew up in Reading. After doing a music degree at Oxford, she did a Master’s in Human Rights Law, and then became a barrister at a London chambers, disappearing off periodically to work, including on The Bushmen Project in Botswana and with Karenni refugees in a camp in Thailand. After scribbling fiction on the side for a while, she did a Master’s in Creative Writing, and eventually quit the law. She is the author of Saffron Shadows and Salvaged Scripts: Literary Life in Myanmar Under Censorship and in Transition (Columbia University Press, 2015), which includes interviews with Burmese writers and new literary translations. She is currently doing a PhD in Literary Anthropology, researching live literature, and directs an experimental live literature project. She lives in London with her husband and two small children.
Someone has flung rainbow pepper on the air.
The hummingbirds are migrating, each alone:
Blossomcrown, Coppery Thorntail and Flame-Rumped Sapphire.
RUTH PADEL, THE MARA CROSSING
All across the country, people said that
it wasn’t that they didn’t like immigrants.
ALI SMITH, AUTUMN
Contents
Cover (#u9748544c-d1b6-5b21-8d5c-22e2946ada28)
About the Author (#u5179639f-24d8-5127-a448-6dc8fe865a89)
Title Page (#ufba06c29-789c-544f-986f-eebd41dfb864)
Prologue (#ulink_0669471c-f5c2-5778-9672-703799d9957a)
Chapter 1: Jude (#ulink_82ee77d4-7193-56b1-b20c-6517efee3f23)
Chapter 2: Yonas (#ulink_44e7b67d-ada5-564e-8470-4c1932a63030)
Chapter 3: Joe (#ulink_4d282cea-8a43-5b1c-bec8-35ff29a2d4d8)
Chapter 4: Yonas (#ulink_97383d9e-26e4-56f7-8a4b-4e90f51af315)
Chapter 5: Quentin (#ulink_740f496e-9c7b-5dc3-aa53-3b2a10cd7079)
Chapter 6: Yonas (#ulink_3b476a7b-8db8-5e45-bf37-621ec9ea1aca)
Chapter 7: Emil (#ulink_f0dc70d7-e1eb-5830-a1d4-ae555b607ef6)
Chapter 8: Yonas (#ulink_acd70eaa-a255-5406-a45b-053dab08d63c)
Chapter 9: Jude (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10: Molly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: Meg (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: Veata (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: Jude (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: Gavin (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: Tesfay (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: Nina (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23: Gebre (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: Clara (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: Martina (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: Jude (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Melat (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: Jude (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
References (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_2f748567-ce99-5595-bc43-d1694b9b9916)
We’re clinging to each other, fistfuls of flesh and bone, and battering rams are smashing over our heads leaving us stingy-eyed, breathless, a woman and her child are clinging to one of my legs each, everyone is clinging to someone or something, and I almost envy the two tiny babies slung tight to their mothers who don’t have a clue what this chaos is about, who don’t understand the enormity of this terror, because there are way too many of us piled in here, we’ve created a death trap for each other, we know this, but we need each other too, we’re all we’ve got left, and this might be the last group of faces I’ll ever see, and I’ve never seen a group of faces so petrified, and I’ve seen a lot of petrified faces, and there’s another one approaching, oh God, it’s coming, it’s coming, and we’re rising, rising up – up and up and up – and this wave is taller than the tallest cliff and my stomach clenches and our boat is vertical now and I’m clinging on with all my strength and we’re going to flip backwards and this is the end… but then we dip forward, just a little… and then we’re nearly horizontal again – we’re floating on nothingness, we’re flying – and then we SLAP down on the water, and my brain explodes through my skull and the water is roaring and children are shrieking and women are wailing and men are sobbing, and I look beyond the boat and there’s still nothing but this vast purple-grey sky bleeding into a desert of wetness you can’t drink, with a furious monster thrashing underneath the surface, waiting to devour us, and why couldn’t it have chosen a group of people who’ve had an easier life? – and now the child who’s got hold of my leg has vomited in my lap but it doesn’t matter, because we’re rising again, oh God, we’re rising, up and up and up and up…
Chapter 1: Jude (#ulink_267c6edd-5863-545a-b8af-4718a92d11e0)
WELCOME TO HEAVEN, HOW ABOUT A CUP OF TEA?
The cold facts about immigration – why so many asylum seekers head for Britain.
YK (Eritrea) v Home Office. That’s all you have so far. It’s 8 p.m. already, and you’re supposed to submit the skeleton argument tomorrow. You were all set to leave chambers at 6 p.m., for once, when your clerk phoned. You so nearly didn’t pick up, but the receiver tugged at your hand like a magnet.
‘Brief’s just come in for you, counsel’s sick – skelly’s due in the morning, papers being biked over now, all right?’ he barked.
It wasn’t really meant to be a question. But you still could have said no. You had the right to say no. You should have said no. But if you want to get decent work at the Bar you have start out as a Yes person, and as your old supervisor kept telling you, he got his breakthrough case by stepping in at the last minute. You trill your fingernails on the desk.
Back home, Alec will be listening to his final story before lights out. You’re a terrible mother! You should be the one reading him Burglar Bill. He’ll move onto books without pictures soon, and before you know it he’ll be off to uni. You should be spending this precious time cultivating his language development, guiding him through important moral lessons like if you burgle tins of beans and bedpans from people’s houses you have to give them back, or just feeling the warmth of his little body snuggled against yours… But unless you have a career you can’t even pay for the nursery fees you need so that you can have a career… oh, wait…
Anyhow, your papers will arrive any minute. You’ll do the speediest prep possible, enough to wing it, then you’ll jump on the Tube, and in half an hour you’ll be back in your kitchen, making a cup of peppermint tea, then sitting on the edge of Alec’s bed, touching your lips softly onto his apricot cheek, watching his silhouette gently rise and fall with his breath, letting yourself indulge in a moment of utter peace. And then you’ll crash. Meanwhile…
You write the initials YK in your blue notebook, italicize them, doodle some flowers around them, and fill out the acronym in your head: Yoghurty Koala. Yielding Kipper. Yesterday’s Kleenex. Your friends are probably all out having fun right now, on a night out at that new Brazilian place you had to pull out of last time because you were working, or seeing whatever the new film of the moment is… you’re so out of the loop. None of them have procreated yet, or become obsessed with a futile desire to change the world. As a result, all of them appear to have managed to achieve a sane work–life balance involving that mystical thing called down time. You wouldn’t change Alec for the world, of course. But why were you so obsessed by getting into human rights law? Why? The fees have got so low for publicly funded work that you won’t make enough from this case to cover the weekly food shop. Come on, YK. Yowling Kitten. Yachting King. Yossarian Killer.
Your clerk finally lumbers in with two large boxes and dumps them on your desk. ‘Enjoy. I’m off home,’ he says, as if you’d be thrilled. This will take hours just to skim-read. You’re tempted to throw them out of the window and jump after them – or at least just disappear from chambers for a while. You’re so drained, and all you’ve got is a Snickers for dinner, and you’re becoming a stranger to your little boy, not to mention his daddy, and right now you feel less like a human rights warrior and more like a masochist… You manage enough grace to say ‘bye’ but your clerk is already out of the door. His feet thump down the stairs, two at a time. You pull out the first file, and just after you extricate it from the box, it bursts. White sheets drift over your desk and across the floor like snow.
Max would love you to quit the Bar! He says it’s not worth the stress. If you did quit you could start your own business, like screen-printing pretty muslin cloths, that idea you had when Alec was a baby – there’s clearly a market among new mums who want to look artsy while mopping up sick – or maybe just trade barrister for barista, and get a no-stress nine to five in a hipster coffee shop. You’d probably make more money, in the short term anyway, and the pay would be regular. Or else, you and Max could shove all your stuff into storage and migrate somewhere exotic like Zanzibar, teach English, and sip coconut water as Alec splashes through turquoise waves and rides on dolphins.
You pull down a new ring binder from the cupboard, gather up the papers, stick them back in again, in order, which eats up at least fifteen minutes, then start to flick through. So, YK is a male… arrived from Eritrea a year ago… university… government job… writer… conscript… prison break… desert… boat… cabbage truck… and you share a birthday! Seriously, 2 March 1975 – what are the chances? Could he have been born at 8.20 a.m. as well? For your last birthday, Alec made his first ever card for you – a portrait of Mummy in crayon that looked like a warped tomato on stilts with spaghetti on top – and while you were blowing out the candles on Max’s home-baked chocolate and raspberry cake, YK was probably… being smuggled through France? Cakeless and cardless, at any rate.
You go through his witness statement again, more slowly, and find you’re gnawing your knuckles. This isn’t a case you should be skim-reading. The reason you wanted to do this job is because people like YK have had the worst luck thrown their way, and all they get in return for escaping to a supposed safe place is a sea of newspaper headlines branding them liars, scroungers and criminals. At a moment as crucial as a tribunal hearing they need someone who will not only expend time and effort to put their case, but will actually care: that’s you. That’s why you’re still here, when you could be reading Burglar Bill or ordering a caipirinha (probably not simultaneously). But, first things first, where is Eritrea exactly? Might be nice at least to locate it within the continent before you attempt to persuade a judge not to send someone back there.
The internet informs you that it’s a moon-shaped sliver of coastline in East Africa, with mountains inland and coral reefs along the coast. Should be lush. But apparently it’s an ‘open prison’. Ethiopia is its next-door neighbour but also its worst enemy since they split up… after a thirty-year-long war. And then another war over the border… So in 1990, when you were on a camping holiday with your parents in the Lakes, pretending you were a Swallows and Amazons character, YK was stuck behind a front line. And in 1998, when you were doing your law conversion course and trying to get your head around trusts and torts, he was being conscripted. In 2001, when you were starting pupillage in the beautiful surrounds of Temple, his government announced the end of the free press. And in 2003, when you were stressing about leaving your beautiful baby boy in nursery so you could go back to your sought-after job after your maternity leave, he was being tortured in an underground oven.
After a bit more research, you find yourself clicking into a few diaspora blogs, expecting a barrage of outrage against the government, but while you do find a lot of that, you find a lot of defenders as well. It’s like going down a rabbit hole into a world of patriotic passions, fierce emotions and vicious insults. But you’ve got to crawl out: you’re seriously pressed for time now. You need to focus on the law, the expert reports, the evidence. You unwrap your Snickers, take a large bite, and read on.
If what he says is true, YK has lived a more terrifying life than you can contemplate enduring and remaining sane. But as you read his rejection letter from the Home Office, go through his witness statement again and note down questions you want to ask, a cynical voice in your head can’t help asking: how much is he exaggerating? He claims he was imprisoned for writing articles criticizing the regime… but would he really have dared to do something that risky in a country that repressive? There’s less press freedom there than in North Korea. And then to stage a prison break near a militarized border – is that even possible? It’s ironic that the more oppressive the country, the harder it is to make any stories of resistance sound credible in a tribunal, when, if they were true, the case for asylum would be all the stronger. YK has also got zero hard evidence from Eritrea to back up what he says, which of course makes sense if he had to flee, but never helps with credibility. Also, could his journey really have been that hair-raising? And why didn’t he just seek asylum here sooner? Plus, you bet in person his English will be rubbish and he won’t remember what his solicitor put in his statement and he’ll come across as stilted and awkward and the judge will make him squirm.
You plough on, sticking Post-it notes on pages of the file and making lists. YK has got some good character witnesses, like Molly Muldoon, his English teacher, and Nina Lambourne, a friend who claims she trusts him enough to let him babysit her daughter… Doesn’t that name ring a bell? Oh, and she’s Molly’s daughter. So how come she became friends with him? Not relevant, not relevant…
Your eyelids start dragging. You yawn, check your watch. It’s late. Coffee is essential if you’re going to get through this. You get up, stretch, and walk along the deserted corridor to the kitchen.
The ceiling light sputters and flickers as the kettle crackles. You’ve pretty much planned your argument now, and bullet-pointed the facts you need to prove. But it’s funny – although you’re frazzled, it’s at moments like this that you wish your job went further, that you could know more, understand more. Sure, maybe it is a big enough challenge to take a mountain of legal documents and adapt them into a convincing account of someone’s life constructed solely from words and facts that can be evidentially proven and are appropriate to the context, and tessellate all that into a persuasive argument about legal merit. It’s a high-stakes brainteaser. But however well you solve that puzzle, and however well YK performs as a witness, at the end of the hearing he’ll still be a mystery to you. You’ll never know the truth. Truth. Well, you will have a handle on the kind of truth that the law demands – a cluster of facts weighty enough to tip the case over the balance of probabilities – but what you’d love to get a sense of is the truth of what it has felt like to be YK, Yonas Kelati, the living, breathing human being, your birthday twin. At least solicitors get to spend time with their clients, taking statements. Barristers barely get to meet them, usually. You wish you could dive inside the pages of these case files and swim around underneath the text to find out what your life would have been like if you and YK happened to have been switched at birth.
You pour out hot water, stir in two spoons of instant coffee with two heaped spoons of chocolate powder, splosh in the last of the communal milk, and sit down on the spare chair by the photocopier. After the first hot, bittersweet sip, you close your eyes. Imagine if, instead of meeting YK at the tribunal hearing, you could meet him for a coffee – not a vile mocha like the one you’ve just made, but a nice cappuccino in your local café with the comfy armchairs – and introduce yourself, not as his barrister, but just as Jude, a random British woman who happens to be exactly the same age. After some small talk you could mention that you’d be interested to know more about him and what led him here, and let him tell his story in his own words, while you probe subtly for details along the way, as any friend might do, allowing the conversation to branch and spiral beyond that square box labelled legal relevance.
Imagine if you could do the same with the other witnesses too. You could invite them each to tell you how they got to know YK, and find out what they really think of him. Yes, that part would be like when you were introduced to Max’s friends and family: you thought you had the measure of your boyfriend, but they gave you a clearer sense of who he was before you came along, and illuminated quirks of his personality. The way Max knocks on his teeth with his fist while trying to make a decision, as if he were asking his inner oracle for permission to enter? His circumspect dad does exactly the same. By the end of a marathon of chats and coffees you’d be bouncing off the walls, but you would also be able to adapt all the sterile witness statements in this ring binder into something resembling stories.
You could go further, and adapt YK’s story into a third-person narrative like the kind you normally get in an asylum judgment, but more red-blooded and visceral. You’d go way beyond that Miller v Jackson judgment you learned about at law school, where Lord Denning started off by waxing lyrical about a summertime cricket match, in order to cement his legal argument about nuisance. You’d go the whole way, turning law into literature. But how would that help YK? You could kidnap the immigration judge listed for YK’s hearing, borrow her robes and pose as her while you read out your own prose to the tribunal, and conclude triumphantly that the appeal has succeeded… Oh, except you’d have to be there to listen to the judgment, as YK’s barrister. And you’d probably end up jailed yourself.
Anyhow, you’ve finished your drink, so it’s time to stop fantasizing and get back to work. But, when you sit at your desk again, your fingers seem to get a will of their own and start typing words into an online search box: Eritrean restaurant London. Your mouse clicks on a link. The food looks pretty good – lots of big pancake-type things and curries. You imagine taking YK and your solicitor there after the hearing to celebrate your win, and inviting him to choose the dishes… It’ll probably never happen. There probably won’t be an appropriate moment to ask, and anyway he might have no interest in getting to know you, might not care at all that you share a birthday, might not want to let you into any more details about his parallel, polar-opposite life. But you can at least make it a belated New Year’s resolution to step away from Pizza Express and drag your family along to eat some authentic Eritrean food one day, if you ever get time off work, to close your eyes while chewing, to immerse yourself in the new flavour sensations on your tongue…
Chapter 2: Yonas (#ulink_aff092e6-48d1-52e8-9c70-1e03b9acc8f1)
CEREAL OFFENDERS: ASYLUM SEEKER GANG COLLECTED £24 MILLION DRUG MONEY IN SPECIAL K BOXES
It was the ninety-third morning. Yonas picked up a shrimp, tore off its head, pulled off its tail, eased away its leg-fringed shell, then tossed the shell in a bucket to the right, dropped the flesh onto the pile to the left, and grabbed another, then tore off its head, pulled off its tail, and on, and on… until his numb fingertips fumbled, and a shrimp dropped to the floor. He stopped and stared at it for a moment. Lying there. Taunting him. He felt like lying down on the floor and curling up next to it. As he finally bent to grasp it, his spine made a cracking noise and a twinge spiked across his lower back. He straightened up, tentatively, stretched his arms and felt his shoulders crunch. The others were all hunched over cockles, mussels, oysters and crabs, and he imagined the whole lot of them solidifying and being found in here one day by a bunch of archaeologists, frozen in time like statues in a derelict church, with rotting shellfish strewn around their feet.
His stomach growled, reminding him that, by some miracle, he was still alive. Before he knew it he would be free to go out to a restaurant to eat a tasty meal with a bottle of beer on the side, and even some fresh fruit afterwards if he felt like it. What he would give right now for the zingy fragrance of a mango, fresh from the garden, newly sliced, glistening gold and dripping with juice! Saliva gushed around his tongue.
He blew pointlessly on his fingers, and turned the next shrimp around in his palm, picturing the beast when it was still alive, pottering along the seabed, waving its whiskers, unaware that it was about to be scooped up and boiled. He broke the shell open and extracted the flesh. When it dried, its colour would intensify and it would shrink into a crescent bead. He could string a collection into a necklace for little Lemlem… but she wouldn’t be so little any more. It had been over a year since he’d seen her running around on those chubby legs. How great it would be to hear her voice chirping down a phone. Better still, to have her run through the door squealing Uncle Yonas!, reaching her arms out to be picked up, tossed in the air and spun around…
A sharp slap on the back of his head jarred his neck, and grey sparkles danced before his eyes. ‘Get on with it,’ Aziz barked.
Yonas felt like jumping up, kicking his stool away, chucking his entire bucket of shrimp shells over Aziz’s ugly, balding head, then roaring: You get on with it! We’re out of here!
But Gebre was hissing at him: ‘Eh! Melehaye!’ his face peeking around a mountain of scallops. ‘While you were daydreaming over there I started my fourth bucket. I’m being tipped for promotion.’ He flicked a shell into the air so it spun down and landed with a clink.
Yonas laughed, as much in surprise as at the joke. He couldn’t remember when Gebre was last in a good enough mood to banter, but then one of them had always tried to pep up the other if they were down. ‘No chance, my friend,’ he retorted. ‘You’re the donkey to my racehorse.’
‘There’s only one donkey in here,’ Gebre said, ‘and I’m talking to him.’
‘If you weren’t the donkey you’d have noticed that my shrimps are a quarter the size of your scallops so my buckets take way longer to fill. Which means I can take time out and still go faster than you.’
Gebre cackled. ‘Listen, one of your shrimps is about the size of your—’
But Aziz was approaching Gebre from behind now, and before Yonas had time to gesture a warning, his friend had been yanked around. ‘What did I tell you,’ Aziz snarled, snout to nose, then let go suddenly, so that Gebre nearly toppled. Then he looked over to Yonas. ‘Stop slacking, both of you, and get on with your fucking work,’ he said, and skulked off to his den again, mumbling something that sounded like ‘fed up with managing reprobates’. A piece of paper taped to his door stated OFFICE NO ENTER in unequivocal red marker.
Gebre’s face crumpled into its default frown, his liveliness fading as quickly as it had appeared. He absently gnawed at a well-chewed fingernail, then got back to his shelling. We have to get out of here, Yonas thought. It was crazy to have been in the UK all this time and still to have no sense of what this country was actually like.
Their arrival felt like yesterday and for ever ago. Yonas remembered so clearly when they first walked in, both of them so weak they could barely stand, but still vaguely elated at having survived, together, through everything. When he registered how dank and eerie the factory was, Yonas’s first reaction was to think he must be hallucinating, that in his fatigue he’d dreamed up some kind of ghost story set in Victorian Britain. He’d uttered a staccato laugh – but the sound had reverberated back at him, and a couple of the other workers had glanced up, confused. The place was dimly lit, with only narrow shafts of daylight struggling through boarded-up windows, and the workers wore glazed, otherworldly expressions. The ceiling was high, and charred remains of timbers were dotted along the wall where the first floor must once have been. The kitchen on the back wall consisted of a big vat perched on a tiny gas burner, like an oversized owl on a twig. The bathroom comprised two industrial sinks with a hosepipe shower, and the toilet was in a shed outside with no lock. Sharing it between nineteen other men meant it was never free when you needed it. But at least there was a toilet. Yonas thought back to those interminable days in the lorry through the Sahara, how he’d had to close off the top of his throat and breathe through his mouth so that he couldn’t smell the foul cocktail of piss and shit and vomit, and later the sickly sweet infusion of decomposing human flesh. Yes, this place might be an improvement, but that didn’t make it endurable. This was the UK, after all.
On the very first morning in the factory, when they could have slept for another twenty-four hours, they hauled themselves up, stiff as rusted robots, and Aziz put them straight to work. New crates of shellfish were delivered before dawn, and they all had to be rinsed, the bad ones discarded, the rest graded and sorted, then shelled or polished, cooked up or chilled, potted or packed, and finally re-loaded into the crates and lugged back outside for collection. Buckets and tools had to be emptied and cleaned, stray shells and seaweed fronds swept up, floors mopped. It wasn’t as if Yonas hadn’t anticipated some drudgery when he first got here – they had to pay back the smugglers after all – but he hadn’t expected to be stuck in a place this grim without any pay at all. So much for his university degree. If it weren’t for that stupid war, he might be at work right now in a warm office, with his own desk under a fan, wearing a thin, crisp shirt, writing something, coming up with new ideas… The only thing going for this place was the hope that they’d end up with papers, a ray of light that was diminishing daily. Ninety-three days…
The shrimp shells started to cut into Yonas’s scarred finger pads, and pinkish blood began seeping out. The point of a headache drilled into his skull. It was so damply cold here, he felt like mould was growing into his bones. He jiggled his feet and waggled his fingers in an attempt to get some feeling back.
A rumbling came from above: rain dancing on the roof. Drips began to splat on the floor in syncopated rhythms, and the radio crackled into ‘Billie Jean’. Yonas looked over at Gebre, trying in vain to catch his eye, hoping for a sign that he too was remembering his attempt to moonwalk all the way to school.
That evening it was Yonas’s turn to make dinner, and Aziz, with a vindictive look in his eyes, paired him up with Samuel, who never seemed to utter more than a monosyllable. Yonas surveyed the ingredients glumly. ‘Well, there’s not much oil left,’ he said, ‘so how about we boil the pasta and potatoes, put chunks of that plastic cheese on top, and steam those reject mussels?’
Samuel nodded blankly.
‘We’ll get about two runts each from that lot if we’re lucky,’ Yonas added.
Samuel just stared at the reject mussels, expressionless.
‘I’d give anything for a big, tasty lamb zigni stew with rice right now, and some herbs and spices, and vegetables – wouldn’t you?’ Yonas persisted. ‘If you could eat any other dish in the world, what would it be? Come on. Your favourite! You must have one.’
Samuel thought, long and hard, or so it appeared. Then he just shrugged.
Yonas tipped potatoes from the sack into buckets, got two nailbrushes, told Samuel to scrub one bucketful, and started on the other. Dirt clouded into the water and embedded under his fingernails. He considered his chances of supplementing the mussels with some of the scallops that were intended for customers, and glanced over at Petros who was on enforcement duty, looking bored. After a few minutes his bulbous head began to nod. Yonas trod softly over to the scallops, and reached for a handful.
‘Er, we’re not allowed those ones,’ Samuel said dozily.
Yonas only just managed to snatch his hand back before Petros sat up to see what was going on. ‘I’m going to take a leak,’ he said, and walked outside.
Once he got through the door he punched his fists at the dark and yelled, ‘GET ME OUT OF HERE’ – noiselessly, and to nobody in particular. He took a few deep breaths before going in again.
Once dinner was ready, Yonas banged the ladle on the vat lid. The others mooched over, collected plastic bowls, and held them out. He swallowed his own gloopy portion as fast as possible, as most of them did, and watched Gebre pick listlessly at his. Just before bed, he beckoned Gebre outside.
‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘Let’s cut our losses and go.’
‘What, now? In the dark?’
‘Harder for them to find us.’
‘What about our papers?’
‘We’re never getting papers – we’ve been slaving here for three months now. We must have earned enough to pay off our debts. And I feel so guilty about Melat: the police will be onto her about me and she’ll be hounded for diaspora tax, and Sheshy needs prosthetics and Lemlem needs school fees. . . I’ve got to wire them some money.’
Gebre looked away, then down at his feet. ‘I know, but Blackjack promised we’d get papers, and that must take some time.’
‘Ninety-three days?’
‘Maybe. And anyway, if we leave with nothing, and it’s too late for asylum, we’ll just get locked up then sent back. I’d rather kill myself.’
‘Hey, stop that! Look, we’ve done amazingly to make it here, but now it turns out we’re being used, we just have to keep going a bit longer, and then we can make a life for ourselves. A life where we at least get to earn money and have a bit of freedom and self-respect. Also, don’t we owe it to all the people who didn’t make it here to do something with this chance? Remember—’
‘Don’t make me.’
‘Okay, but—’
‘Aziz will kill us. He’s got a gun, Rashid said.’
‘I doubt it. He’d have waved it in our faces by now if he had. I reckon he’s just blustering. Anyway, he can hardly leave the factory with no one except Petros in charge and come on a wild goose chase for us, can he?’
‘He can call Blackjack.’
They had only met Blackjack once, when he came to do an inspection, a white guy dressed all in black, with sunglasses when there was no sun, his only decoration a fat gold watch. He had effected a miracle transformation on their boss when he stepped in the door, turning Aziz from a glowering tyrant into a smiling sycophant.
‘I bet he’s posturing too. Playing the tough guy.’
‘He scares Aziz though.’
This seemed true. ‘Still, I doubt he would waste his time sending people after us,’ Yonas said.
‘But we’ve got no money. We don’t even know where we are…’
‘We can find a way! I’m pretty sure we’re north of London, just from reading the local newspaper. And once we call Auntie, she can direct us.’
‘But if we just had our papers…’
‘Gebre, that’s not going to happen! And this place is making you more depressed by the day. You know you’re like a brother to me – I don’t want to sit here and watch you morph into a mollusc. Worse, into Samuel.’
This at least produced a flicker of a grin. ‘Two more weeks then?’
Yonas sighed. ‘Okay. If you insist. But let’s sneak out on a Friday during free time to plan a route, okay?’
Back inside he grabbed his sleeping mat, rolled it out, lay down, pulled his blanket over his head, and willed himself to go to sleep quickly to avoid Rashid’s tank-engine snore.
Drifting off, he pictured himself hand in hand with Sarama, sneaking off from the barracks, clambering up the mountain path, turning down a goat track and pushing through bushes until they reached their secret spot, where they fell on each other, where nothing else mattered, and then lay there, warm and entangled, looking up at the wide sky, azure and beautiful above the filth as if the war didn’t exist, as he stroked her hair and touched her dimpled cheeks…
He was woken by moaning in his left ear. In the dimness he saw Gebre’s head rolling from side to side, arms poker-straight, forehead crumpled. The moan grew louder, Gebre’s body jerked, and he shocked himself awake. Yonas reached out and put his hand gently on his friend’s arm in the dark. The skin was clammy. Gebre twitched, froze, then curled into a foetal position. Yonas resigned himself to wakefulness for a while. He rummaged around in the dark until he felt his little wooden rooster, extricated it from his pocket, held it lightly between his fingers, then enclosed it tight in his palm. He wondered whether underneath Rashid’s snores he could hear the sea, or whether it was only the shushing of the others’ sleeping breath.
Another drizzly morning followed, with no visible chink in the cloud. The new crates were filled with crabs, piled and twisted together. Some were dead or not far off, but many were still alive, moving their pincers feebly, waving for help. One was valiantly attempting to clamber to the top of the pile. It struggled upwards, slipped back, and climbed up again. It was as if it had already seen the vat inside. It’s too late for you, my friend, Yonas told it. The crab pawed vainly at the crate wall.
Chapter 3: Joe (#ulink_d5b635e6-382c-5586-9132-8c0107cf7d31)
ASYLUM SEEKER TRAVELS 50 MILES TO BRITAIN STRAPPED UNDER SCHOOL TRIP COACH… AND EMERGES WITH A GRIN AND THUMBS-UP
Oh go on then, I’ll have a coffee. Which type, did you say? Just normal, like, milk and two sugars. Americano? If you say so.
So, you want to know about how I met that African lad. I don’t know, that’s got to be one of the oddest things that’s ever happened to me. For starters, in that neck of the woods you don’t come across many people, you know, that colour… or anyone, like, it’s just fields and that. And he sprung me out of the blue… what-d’you-call-it… ambushed me! It were outside this old farm building down a track off Blithe Lane.
Things had been a bit fishy with that place for a while. In more ways than one. Ha! Anyway, it used to be a little arable farm, but it got a bit run-down, and I remember folks saying the farmer were in debt, and then there were a fire – that some said weren’t an accident – and then he sold the fields off. Not long after, we heard he’d passed. But he were a loner type, Bill Hardy. No one really seemed to know him personally, and apparently his son lived abroad, so I didn’t know what were going on for a while, but it seemed like the farm business had folded cos I’d pass the track on me route and the buildings down there just looked empty. But then one day I spotted some lights on, and I thought, hmm, what’s going on there then, and a couple of weeks later I got told it were back on me route. Sure enough, when I drove down, a couple of big rubbish sacks were out waiting for me, and I saw some movement in one of the windows. The sacks stank of fish, and I thought, well, this ain’t farming again is it – what are the new folks up to? I decided to mind me own business and just chucked the sacks into the truck. But a few days later, I were about to pick up some more when this bloke came out.
Now this weren’t our African lad, not yet – this one were a chunky Paki-looking bloke, and that threw me too, you know what I mean, around here! I said hello, and asked what were planned for the farm now. He looked kind of nervous, said summat about getting things set up for a new farm and retail business. And then he went: ‘It would be good for people who ask if you can say that is what we are doing,’ and held out twenty quid! Said he’d really appreciate it, and looked right in me eyes. Nowt like that happened to me before, I can tell you.
‘So… you’d sort me out like this next week and all?’ I asked.
‘Every week,’ he said. ‘I can leave money under there.’ He pointed out a lump of rock close to the rubbish sacks.
I were a bit torn then. I mean, I were pretty sure it must be summat dodgy. But the wife and me were under pressure with money and that, what with me son being expelled and me daughter dyslexic and there being no work for young’uns round here these days. Not to mention she’s a stickler for the accounts, the old lady, and so I have to give her every penny and I’m only allowed three pints a week. So an extra few quid weren’t going to do me any harm.
And it weren’t as if I knew what were going on exactly. I mean, this bloke could’ve been planning to set up summat legit soon enough. Anyway, I were only a bin man so who were really going to ask me anyway?
And he kept his word. Every week, cash were under that rock like he said. I could even get rounds in for the lads down the pub. I took to joining them earlier, got me pool skills up to scratch, and after a month or so I were king of the table for winner-stays-on for the first time ever! I saved up a bit and got meself a nice bottle of Scotch and a flask to keep me goin’ on a chilly morning on the round.
Didn’t get away with it for long though. That’s marriage for you! One day, when I got back late from the pub, Jill were waiting in the kitchen, hands on her hips, and she went: ‘What’s got into you, Joe? You never used to stay out till closing.’
‘Leave it out, will you,’ I said.
‘I hardly see you any more,’ she said, nag nag nag. ‘And you always come home smelling of whisky these days. I don’t like it and I don’t know how you’re paying for it.’
‘Aw come on, it’s just the odd nightcap, love. Don’t start naggin’ now, will you?’
Should’ve known that’d wind her up. ‘I’ll say what I like!’ she said. ‘Go on, tell me, how can you be affording whisky every night when you always used to moan about how much I let you take out of the kitty?’
‘The lads are a generous bunch,’ I said.
‘Come off it, Joe, they’re as tight as you.’
‘Well if you must know,’ I said, ‘I’ve got nifty on the pool table. Found meself on a winning streak.’
‘Oh pull the other one,’ she said. ‘I used to thrash you at pool, and I’ve got the hand–eye coordination of a… I don’t know. A penguin.’
‘Penguins don’t have hands, Jill.’
‘Exactly,’ she said, all smug.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘why don’t you join the lads at the pub tomorrow then, and see me skills for yourself?’ I wished I hadn’t said that, soon as it came out me mouth. Knowing Jill, she would and all and I’d get all nervous and fluff it up. But luckily she said she’d got better things to do.
Anyway, I’d got to the point where I’d almost forgotten there were anything unusual about that building, and it were just a normal drizzly morning when I were driving up the track and in me mirrors I saw summat moving in the bushes and then pop out – guessed it were a deer or summat – but it were that black African lad! And he jumped on the back of me truck, quick as a flash. Nearly give me the fright of me life! It were like seeing a ghost… but the opposite colour – ha! Anyway, I braked, opened the door, and looked out at him. ‘All right there?’ I asked. He got off, and I thought he might make a run for it, but he walked towards me. He were wearing worker’s overalls and they were right filthy. He were youngish, thirties I’d say, pale brown skin, tall and skinny as a rake with matted hair and a beard, and I wondered if he were one of them jihad terrorists about to hijack me or summat. But then I thought, they’re normally Arabs. And then I thought, Why would a bloke do summat like that out here to a bloke like me? He didn’t say a word at first, just stared, and I couldn’t tell if he were scared or crazy. I wondered if he’d escaped from some loony asylum or if he were illegal, one of them that are supposed to be all over the shop. So I told him I’d better be on me way.
But he burst out: ‘Wait! Please wait. Sir, I’m lost, can you please take me to the train station?’
I’d never been called sir in me life, and it were such an odd thing to hear, it made me laugh. But how could you get lost trying to get to the train station out here? And why did he jump on the back? Didn’t sound right.
‘Not on my route,’ I told him. ‘Sorry. And I’d better be going, so if you could move aside…’
‘Please,’ he said, and there were this look in his eyes, this desperation. ‘You can drop me anywhere.’
Now, normally I do like to pick up the odd hitchhiker. Used to hitch meself back in the day. But no one’d ever hitched a ride in me rubbish truck before! Most folks who walk past it hold their noses, and folks wrinkle their noses up at me when I’m in me work gear in a shop or summat – and I’m used to that now. But he didn’t seem to mind. Probably smelled himself but I’m immune to that. I could’ve told him just to get out the way again, but I remember what that were like, when people told me to move it when I really needed to get somewhere and I could see they had room. But then I thought, if I take this lad along, I might stop getting the weekly tip. But then another part of me felt bad for taking it in the first place.
So then I thought, what the heck, and told him to hop in. As we got further up the track I noticed he kept on looking in the rear-view mirror, like he were spooked. And when we got to the main road he went, ‘Thank you, you’ve saved me.’
I wished he hadn’t said that. I said it weren’t a problem. But then I couldn’t stop meself asking what country he were from.
Oh Lord, now, what were it he said? To be honest I hadn’t heard of the place. It were in Africa, close to Ethiopia, I remember that much, and I felt bad then. ‘I remember those pictures on the telly in the eighties,’ I told him. ‘Kids with bellies popping out.’ It were horrible, that famine, horrible. I hadn’t thought about it for a while. ‘Were it like that in your country?’ I asked him. He said that they used to be the same country in the eighties. News to me! Geography were never me strong suit. Well anyway, then I felt all right, like I were actually doing a good deed by giving this poor lad a lift, like I were finally doing something for all them starving kids, not just watching them on telly and donating a couple of quid to Bob Geldof and feeling pretty useless. And then he asked me if I knew London.
‘Not well,’ I told him. ‘Too hectic for me down there. I’ve got a brother who lives in the East End though. Moved there not long ago and got himself a job. Place called Canning Town. Haven’t visited him yet. Should get round to it. So – what brought you to England then?’
‘Just to live,’ he said. I guessed then he were after benefits, like they say, you know, and fair play, in a way – I mean, I suppose you would be, coming from somewhere like that. But he added: ‘And work.’
‘Oh right,’ I said. ‘What kind of work?’
‘Anything,’ he said. ‘If it pays some money. Even cleaning toilets would be good just now.’
‘Well, who knows,’ I said, ‘you might even find a bin man job, there’s worse things!’ And he laughed. ‘You go for it, lad,’ I said. ‘So, when d’you get here then?’
He took a while to answer, till I thought maybe he hadn’t heard the question. Then he said, ‘Not long ago. Actually I already started work, but I was working for a bad man.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Long flight to get here, was it?’ I asked him, to change t’subject.
He laughed. ‘I didn’t fly,’ he said. ‘First we had to walk through the desert for four days with no food. We only survived because we came across a shepherd’s water container in a valley so we could drink, and the hyenas decided not to eat us.’
I looked at him, and nearly laughed, like – you what?
‘Then, for some time we were living in a lorry, a bit like this one,’ he said. ‘But stuck inside a box on the back, with no room to sit down, and it was as hot as an oven – and the smell was worse than this.’
‘Ha!’ I laughed. ‘Come on now. Not many folk would say that about a rubbish truck smell.’
‘Maybe they haven’t smelled—’ then he stopped.
‘Smelled what?! Dead people?’ I laughed at me own joke, even though it were a bit dark, like.
But he weren’t laughing. He looked out the window. Didn’t deny it. I mean, he could have said he were just being polite about me truck or summat! I felt queasy all of a sudden. This were creepy, like. Were he saying they’d been murdered, these dead people he were travelling with? Were he the killer? Were he about to finish me off and all? Me heart started going then, nineteen to’t dozen, I tell you. Tricky thing to hijack though, a rubbish truck. I mean, you’d get spotted pretty quick, wouldn’t you? Couldn’t get up much of a speed. And this lad seemed polite, anyway, not like a killer. Maybe there weren’t actually dead people in a lorry with him – maybe he just didn’t say there weren’t. If you know what I mean.
‘We came in a boat, for the last part,’ he told me.
‘Who’s we then?’ I asked. ‘Did you come with family?’
‘With a friend,’ he said, ‘who is like my brother.’ But he didn’t tell me nowt more, and to be honest I’d heard enough. Can of worms, I’d got to thinking.
‘Well, you’re probably doing the right thing, heading to London now,’ I said, trying to sound cheery. ‘Tough to get any kind of work round here these days, so no point you hangin’ around. I’m sure you’ll settle into the Big Smoke, no worries.’
I switched on Radio 2. There were Bryan Adams on, and then Bob Dylan – ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, you know the one. And then your lad started singing along! He knew the lyrics – I mean, word for word. I had no clue they listened to that sort of thing in Africa! Thought they were more into drumming or reggae or whatever. But anyway it were quite funny – I ended up joining in, and we were there driving to town, the two of us, singing like we were a couple of mates who’d just left the pub on New Year’s Eve. And I thought: this lad is all right!
Soon enough we got to the station. ‘Here we are then,’ I said.
He were about to get out, but then he stopped and asked for me phone number. Pulled a crumpled piece of newspaper out of his pocket for me to write on.
I weren’t keen about that. I mean, I had started to warm to him a bit, but once you write stuff down and give out your details – you know? But he said he didn’t know anyone in the UK yet, and maybe we could meet again some day as he’d like to say thanks. Just so bloody polite! There were loads of reasons to say no. But then he’d come from that country with the starving kids, and he’d travelled all the way here on his tod, in some kind of grave on wheels – and the lad knew all the bloomin’ words to ‘Like a Rolling Stone’! So I scribbled it down.
As I drove off down the road I kicked meself. Not literally. But I just felt like I’d been a softie, and I started to get worried about what might happen. For all I knew he could be a criminal. I could’ve aided and abetted. But I tried to put it all out of me mind and think of it as a good deed. And that were that, for a long while anyway. The twenty-quid notes kept on coming, and I stayed king of the pool table for a month, till some young upstart came along. Assumed I’d never hear from the African lad again. And after a week or two of having strange dreams with corpses stuffed like sardines in the back of me rubbish truck, things went back to normal and I very nearly forgot all about him.
Chapter 4: Yonas (#ulink_54ff1d2d-308d-5858-9e40-79ab4db5bb5c)
MIGRANT SHAMBLES: EU ‘HAS SURRENDERED COMPLETE CONTROL OF ITS BORDERS TO PEOPLE SMUGGLERS’
On Friday morning, Yonas went outside to collect the new deliveries and jogged on the spot for a minute, trying to pump some blood back into his toes. Beyond the fence, a pinkish sky illuminated the scattering of copper and mustard leaves among the dense bushes. Some were already forming a squidgy layer on the cracked concrete. As he looked up the track, his feet itched at the prospect of getting out. Only a few hours to go before the scoping walk.
He reached out to pick up the topmost crate of scallops, and its newspaper lining caught his eye.
TORTURED ASYLUM SEEKER FRAUDULENTLY CLAIMED £21,000 IN BENEFITS WHILE EARNING £2,000 A MONTH
£21,000? That sounded like a lot! Even £2,000 sounded like a lot. Could this story be made up? But this was the UK, and newspapers here were regulated – didn’t they have a duty to present facts? Still… He tore out the headline carefully, put it in his pocket, and lugged the crate inside.
For the rest of the morning he worked faster than usual, with jiggling feet. In anticipation of the walk he thought back to his military service days, how impatiently he’d look forward to striding out of the barracks, up that long, stony path all the way up to the Eye, a hole in the rock that was big enough to sit in, to curve your spine into its shape, smoothed by the weather and the years and countless other human forms, and rest for a while, absorbing the rippling mountainscape, free for a precious moment just by rising above it all. When the wind was easterly the Eye would emit a low wail, like a giant flute.
At noon, Aziz started caterwauling his call to prayer and pulled out the frayed carpet, marking the start of free time. While he and the other Muslims prostrated themselves, everyone else sat around and played mancala games or snoozed. Yonas leaned against the wall preparing to read his saved sheets of newspaper, but Osman’s wheezy cough sounded beside him. ‘Yonas, can you help practise my English?’
‘Sure,’ he said, swallowing his irritation. ‘Take a seat. Why don’t you start from here, the bit about the football team?’
Osman stumbled along, tracing his finger at a snail’s pace underneath the words. He was a cute kid, seventeen at most, and the only other person in the factory who showed any interest in reading, in finding out more about this country they were in, anticipating more than mere survival. Meanwhile Gebre was watching a mancala game with a vacant expression. Yonas chipped in now and then to correct Osman’s pronunciation or explain a definition, and time dawdled on. But finally prayers were over, Petros went out, and Aziz retreated to his den, from where a rhythmic snore signalled the start of his nap. Yonas told Osman to carry on reading while he went to the toilet, got up and went out, nudging Gebre on his way.
As planned, Gebre followed him. ‘Okay, let’s go!’ Yonas whispered.
But Gebre shook his head. ‘I’ve been thinking – it’s too risky. If we’re going for good on Monday, let’s just figure out a route then, on the fly.’
He had a point. But Yonas wanted so badly to get beyond the fence. ‘I think we should plan,’ he said. ‘But I’ll just go solo if you don’t want to.’
He crossed the yard, clambered over the gate and started up the hill. But then he heard footsteps. He turned with a flicker of panic – but it was Gebre, after all! Yonas grinned, held up his palm for a high-five and they carried on side by side. The sun was struggling through thick swathes of cloud and the wind strengthened as they climbed. It felt so good to be moving. ‘So, we’ll get to a higher point,’ Yonas said, ‘and work out a direction, some landmarks, sketch out in our heads a rough route that seems like it’s away from main roads with foliage to hide in… We’ll travel mainly at dawn and dusk, find odd jobs, dry places to sleep, and then once we get to London—’ He stopped. Grabbed Gebre’s shoulder. Yes: footsteps again. They turned, expecting to see Petros with a snarl on his face.
‘Osman!’ Yonas laughed incredulously. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I want to come,’ the kid said. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Just for a walk. But if Aziz finds out…’
‘I don’t care.’
‘You should,’ Gebre said.
‘You can’t stop me.’ For a moment, Osman looked exactly like Yonas’s little brother Tekle, with those stubborn, pleading eyes, those puppy eyebrows.
‘Come on then!’ Yonas relented, and jabbed Gebre in the ribs. ‘Race you to the top!’ To his surprise, Gebre took off as if he’d got new batteries. Yonas pounded behind, energy streaming into his blood, laughter making him gasp for air. His feet thundered, his stiff, cold muscles came painfully to life, his arms pumped like pistons, his lungs were about to explode, his whole body was on fire, but he carried on regardless.
When they finally made it, panting, to the crest of the hill, they were struck in the face by a blast of salty wind. Blood thumped in Yonas’s temples as he let out a whoop. Gebre bent forward, hands on his knees, puffing steam into the air. Osman, wheezing, finally made it to join them. About a mile down the slope ahead, and stretching out indefinitely, was the sea.
It wasn’t bright blue or gleaming like the Red Sea, or violent and terrible like the Mediterranean. It was a soft, deep grey flecked with white foam like a scattering of goose feathers. A few birds hovered over it, frolicking in the wind, making light of its huge scale, a scale that brought back the terror… and yet, from this safe vantage point, the sight was liberating. Reaching out his arms like a champion sprinter, Yonas flung back his head and inhaled into parts of his lungs he had forgotten existed.
Gebre stood with his feet wide, hands on hips, shaking his head, a smile transforming his face. ‘It is good to be out of there,’ he said.
Yonas nodded sagely. ‘I told you so.’
‘All right, all right, you didn’t paint this view.’
‘I made this whole sea out of my saliva,’ Yonas said. ‘You should start worshipping me like I deserve.’
‘Idiot’, Gebre said, shoving him gently, then flopped down on the ground. Yonas copied, feeling almost drunk on the lightness of laughter and the weight of his body on the earth and the intense, sharp scent of damp grass.
Eventually he sat up, and leaned on his elbows. The sky to the south was blue-green, like the inside of a duck egg shell, and splashed with drifting clouds, but to the north a malevolent purple mass was forming. He closed his eyes, and let the wind pummel his cheeks. Feeling his sweat cool, he shivered, rubbed his arms and sat up straight. ‘Okay – we’re supposed to be planning a route here, and then we should head back,’ he said, and began to scan the inland horizon. There was no sign of a town; the only buildings visible were an industrial-looking complex and some clusters of houses in the distance. Yonas figured if they followed the coastline southwards for a while they would be able to get quite a long way unnoticed, before working out a way to call Auntie. Gebre was still lying down with his eyes closed and a serene look on his face. Yonas cast around for Osman. He looked behind, and either side – and then spotted him, running down the hill ahead, at full pelt towards the sea.
He grabbed Gebre’s arm. ‘Look! Osman – he’s running off!’
Gebre jerked upright, then they both scrambled to their feet. ‘Osmaaaaan!’
‘He can’t hear. But they might hear us at the factory if we yell any more. We’ll never catch him and get back on time…’
‘Donkoro. I knew something like this would happen,’ Gebre groaned. ‘We shouldn’t have let him come.’
‘Maybe he’s got the right idea,’ Yonas said. ‘Come on, let’s go too – screw it!’
‘We can’t. We agreed two weeks. And my photo’s still in there.’
‘What? The one of your parents? Why didn’t you bring it?’
‘It’s all I’ve got left. I have to get it.’
Yonas reached into his pocket and ran his finger over the crown of his wooden rooster. ‘It’s just a piece of paper,’ he protested weakly. ‘And if we go back without Osman, Aziz will go nuts…’
‘We’ll get back in time – he won’t know we left. And Osman will turn around any minute. Come on.’
Gebre set off. Osman’s figure was already just a speck on the horizon. Yonas followed.
When they slipped into the factory again, there were a few raised eyebrows among the other workers but nobody said anything. Aziz re-emerged from his nap, dinner preparation started as normal, and nobody seemed to notice anyone was missing. But then Rashid came up behind Yonas. ‘Where’s Osman?’ he whispered. Yonas mimed zipping his mouth.
It was only a few minutes before Aziz clocked his absence. ‘Osman!’ he bellowed. He looked around and turned on Rashid. ‘Where’s the boy?’ Rashid shrugged, and Aziz spat at his feet. ‘Fetch him now. I need my laundry.’
‘Sir – I think he’s on the toilet,’ Yonas improvised. ‘I’ll check and get your laundry.’ He went outside, ran around the side of the building and peered up the track. No sign. It was starting to rain. Of course Osman wasn’t coming back. Yonas felt a burn of envy. If he’d been stronger-willed, less sentimental, and said he was going to leave regardless, maybe Gebre would have followed. His friend’s photo, a small sepia one of his parents on their wedding day, was about to disintegrate anyway – it’d got all damp and bent in its ripped plastic wallet so that you could barely make out their faces. Yonas had to stop himself kicking the bins in frustration. He walked back inside. ‘The laundry is still wet,’ he said to Aziz. ‘I couldn’t see him out there.’
Aziz pursed his lips, and looked around. ‘If he is not back soon, there will be trouble. If anyone knows anything, they need to tell me. Right now.’
They all feigned concentration on their tasks.
‘Nobody?’ Aziz’s tone was cajoling. Then he slammed his hand down and roared, ‘ENOUGH. Stop what you are doing, all of you. Look at me.’
They all looked. Aziz pivoted his head like an owl, meeting every set of eyes in turn. Fatally, Rashid scratched an itch.
‘You,’ Aziz barked, and grabbed him by the hair. ‘Where – is – Osman?’
‘I don’t know. I think… he might have gone for a walk,’ Rashid croaked.
‘A walk? Where? When?’
‘Not long… I am not sure, I did not see… I know nothing.’
‘You obviously do know something, dog breath.’
Yonas nearly laughed, despite the situation; that was a new one.
‘No, not me, sir.’
‘Who is going to tell me, then?’ Aziz said, looking around.
There was no response.
‘Right, Petros. Go and hunt for him. If you do not find him in fifteen minutes I will tell Blackjack to get his men on the case.’
Petros nodded and went out, while Aziz stayed, glaring, as if he could shoot truth-forcing rays at them from his pupils.
After a while, Petros returned, shaking his head, which prompted Aziz to go into his den and make a phone call to Blackjack in such a loud, portentous voice that Yonas reckoned it was fake, but couldn’t be sure. They ate dinner in silence. Cleared up in silence. It started to rain. Yonas wondered if Osman had found a town by now, a friendly English person to talk to, a bed to sleep in. But rain was now battering the windows. He was more likely to be shivering under a tree. He’d survive though, wouldn’t he? If anyone from here deserved to, it was that kid.
But just as they were about to roll out their sleeping mats, the door squeaked open, and there he was. What are you doing? Yonas wanted to shout. Turn around, run away! But Osman stood still. His wet hair glistened and his eyes were black mirrors. It might have been a trick of light and water, but he seemed to be standing in an aura, like an icon.
‘Osman,’ Aziz said, his voice all smug, the purr of a cat dangling a mouse.
‘I… I am sorry, sir, I just wanted to have a walk, to get exercise, I got lost…’
‘You know the rules, Osman.’
‘But sir, I just went out because it was free time – I was always going to come back…’
‘Come here.’
Osman walked forward, then stopped a couple of metres in front of Aziz, looking down at his shoes. Rainwater dripped around his feet. Yonas saw Aziz’s arm tense up, ready to swing, but then he seemed to get an idea.
‘Please,’ Osman said, hopefully.
Aziz bent down to pick up a metal bucket, grasped it with both hands, and slammed it down hard, on each of Osman’s feet, so that he yelped with pain, crouched, then fell heavily.
‘That will teach you to go walking,’ Aziz said. ‘Now, you four,’ he said, pointing, ‘pick Osman up and carry him outside so he can think about what he’s done. Everyone else, stay where you are. Samuel, bring that rope. Tie up his ankles, then string them to the tree, from that fat branch.’
Yonas screwed up his eyes. Rashid had told him just the other night how Aziz and Petros had threatened to string him upside down once, because he’d demanded to know when his debt would be paid off. Yonas had seen the technique used in prison; when they did it to Abraham, another political prisoner, it made all the veins explode in his eyes and forehead, turning him into a bloodthirsty monster. More memories bubbled up. Being whipped like an ox while lugging stones in the heat; his head being pushed into a bucket of water until he saw sparkles and was sure he was drowning; and, the worst, the helicopter position…
‘I am sorry, I will never do it again, please, I am sorry,’ Osman was sobbing, even as the rope was being tied, even as his thrashing body was left to swing from the branch like a pendulum.
Aziz barked to the rest of them to get to bed, and walked implacably towards his den, as if they’d all just wish each other a pleasant good night and settle down.
‘You’re not just going to leave him there?’ Yonas said. He dumped his sleeping mat and ran towards Aziz, grabbing his arm. ‘Look at him, he’s only a kid, he’s been punished enough – you’ve probably broken all his toes!’
‘Get. Off. Me.’ Aziz snarled the words, wrenching away. Then he plunged his hand down into his shirt, fumbled awkwardly for a minute somewhere above his gut, his face reddening with the effort, until he pulled out a pistol, black and shining. So, it did exist. He lifted it slowly, and advanced a step towards Yonas. ‘You do as you’re ordered,’ he said. ‘I’m the one who decides punishments around here.’
Yonas stayed still a moment, feeling oddly calm. This was it, one way or another – there was no way back now. No way he could live any longer under this bastard’s orders. Torture was the main reason he’d fled all the way here – it wasn’t supposed to happen in the UK! And he wouldn’t take it. If Aziz didn’t shoot him first, he would be out of this place, by tomorrow morning at the latest… It occurred to him that he had never stood so close to Aziz for so long before. He took in the saggy eyelids, the tousled eyebrows, the beige, blotchy skin, the browning teeth. This was a man who was disillusioned with life, who seemed to have no family and no friends, who lived in shoddy enough dwellings here himself, and whose sole aim seemed to be to wield the little power he’d been given. Yes, he was capable of shooting. But he probably didn’t want to. None of the other workers were saying a word in Yonas’s defence, but he could feel them all, silently rooting for him. Yonas turned away from Aziz, and started to walk back towards his sleeping mat, expecting any second the sound of a gunshot, searing pain. None came. But instead he heard another strangled sob from Osman. Fury bubbled up, and he turned back to Aziz again. ‘So string me up there instead,’ he challenged in an unnaturally loud voice. He felt everyone else go still, and wondered what the hell he was doing.
Aziz looked confused for a second, then laughed snidely, took a handkerchief from his pocket and began, ostentatiously, to polish the muzzle of the pistol. ‘Since you asked so nicely, I will string you up, as well, next to Osman. . . if you say one more word. I’m giving you a chance, here. A last chance. If you’ve got any sense you’ll shut your mouth, and get to bed.’ He didn’t sound entirely convincing though – a bit like a cross parent who has just refused to tell another story but is now conceding. Yonas told himself to stand his ground a few moments longer. Aziz put the handkerchief away, and then, remarkably, his shoulders seemed to sag as he tucked the gun back into its pouch and looked away. ‘Right, Petros,’ Aziz said, ‘give the kid five more minutes, then if he apologizes – like he means it – he can come down.’ With that, he went into his den and slammed the door.
A couple of the others came over and patted Yonas on the back, but he was still seething at their collective gutlessness. ‘Come on, Petros,’ he said, ‘make it a quick five minutes’, and was met by an unsurprising glare. But about two minutes later, Petros summoned a few of them outside to support Osman’s body while he cut the rope, then slouched off.
They carried Osman inside, laid him down gently on his mat and gathered around. He seemed to be unconscious. Was he dead? His eyes were bright red, devilish, his face greyish-purple and blotchy, his skin cold to the touch. Salim grabbed his wrist, held an ear to his chest. ‘Yes – he’s got a pulse!’ he said. ‘Osman?’
But Osman didn’t utter a sound. They all began tenderly stripping him, and putting on dry clothes. His feet were swollen and bloodied, and a couple of his toes pointed in odd directions. Yonas reached out to try to straighten them, which must have been agony, but Osman barely reacted. After a few minutes he coughed, as if he were coming to, but he still didn’t seem to be hearing anything they were saying, just closed his freakish eyes and groaned a little.
‘You will be okay,’ Yonas told him. ‘A friend of mine came through the same thing.’ Tenderly, they wrapped him in blankets.
‘We can keep an eye on him during the night,’ Yonas offered, and he and Gebre put their mats down either side of him, and lay down, both facing him, like anxious new parents caring for a baby. Yonas began humming a lullaby his mother used to sing. It didn’t seem to have any effect on Osman, but made Yonas feel a bit calmer. Gradually, the skin of Osman’s palms warmed, and eventually he took a long breath, like a sigh, that turned into a husky, open-mouthed semi-snore.
A while later, when it sounded like most of the others were asleep, Yonas leaned across and whispered, ‘Gebre, that was the last straw. We’re out of here, tomorrow morning. I’ve got an idea. Involving rubbish. It might be genius. You just need to follow me outside when I say, okay?’
Gebre was silent. He wasn’t asleep though – Yonas could see his eyes glinting in the moonlight.
Chapter 5: Quentin (#ulink_1b9b2914-2fba-5da2-9006-b078da537427)
BARE-FACED CHEEK: FURY AS GERMAN NUDISTS ARE ORDERED TO COVER UP AFTER A MIGRANT SHELTER ARRIVES NEAR THEIR LAKE
Long black, please, extra shot, extra hot, no sugar.
So, this Mr Kelati of yours. Well. I wouldn’t say I know him exactly, but what I do know is that he managed to sneak into this country and turn my life into a train wreck. Talking of trains, that’s where I first came across him, joyriding – though he didn’t exactly look joyous. Look, I’m sure he’s had a tough time of it. I don’t doubt that. But so do thousands of others. My point is that asylum seekers should go through the proper processes if they want to live here, not sneak in illegally and then use public transport without paying and work tax-free and do God knows what else. Otherwise we can’t know who genuinely deserves protection under the Refugee Convention. Which is very unfair to all the genuine refugees. As well as to British people. That’s my opinion. I know, I know: you don’t want my opinion, you want the story.
So, I was with my campaign manager, Alice, en route back to London from Grimsby, where I was Conservative candidate. It was a while before D-day, but you need to start canvassing early: a fact Nina, my wife, struggled to understand. I know it’s not easy looking after a child by yourself, but I would usually only go off for a few days at a time, which lots of mothers manage fine, and Nina is as capable as anyone – except her anxiety was taking her totally off piste. She’d started claiming she couldn’t cope and I didn’t care enough and I was never around and our abysmal parenting was going to ruin Clara’s life. Which was baloney, but she wouldn’t listen. I told her we could pay for some extra childcare if we had to, and she should try going back to her CBT therapist, but she bit my head off. I said she should at least spend more time on her painting, which she says is her best therapy; the problem is she gets herself into a catch-22 situation whereby she needs to go to the studio but is too stressed out to leave the house, and blames it on housework and childcare, even on the days Clara is in nursery.
I’ve always tried to be patient, but it’s hard if you’re constantly being deluged with someone else’s worries or pestered for reassurance or blamed, especially when you’ve got a lot going on yourself. Not to mention the fact that, after I accepted the candidacy, Nina decided she actively disliked all party politics and refused to speak about my work at home. Point-blank! So I was expected to gag myself against any mention of the work I was doing at the most important point in my entire career, but constantly tell Nina not to worry about ridiculous things in a patient voice that implied she wasn’t in fact being ridiculous? It didn’t exactly motivate me to rush back home when I had a constituency to convince, put it that way.
But I digress. That day, Alice and I were on our way back to London, as I say, and I had a vile hangover, but Alice had scheduled a review discussion en route. So I bought myself a long black at the station, and once we were on the train I pulled out my notebook. We talked about how the trip had gone, how the campaign had progressed, what had worked well or less well, and how we might adapt our approach, and, inevitably, we got onto immigration.
It had never been a policy priority for me personally before, not really, but this phase of the campaign had made me realize I just had to take it seriously and focus on it if I wanted to engage the constituents. It was a huge deal for them. Their biggest worry. People were already concerned about all the Eastern Europeans in the mix offering labour for peanuts, and what with illegal immigration stepping up too and asylum seekers swarming in, they felt like they were being invaded. And I needed to up the ante – my UKIP counterpart was wielding all kinds of extreme language, and he was becoming far more popular than anyone had predicted.
Alice and I had always seen eye to eye on pretty much everything. But that morning she said that, in her view, a lot of the headlines I was regularly quoting were more media hype than fact and I should ‘maybe chill out a bit’. I told her she risked being naïve, and while I appreciated her playing devil’s advocate, I ultimately needed her to endorse the approach I was taking, and in fact strengthen it, and that what I was saying was actually more considered and moderate than it necessarily needed to be to make the point. Basically, genuine refugees are fine, but illegal immigration and bogus asylum seekers are major problems that have got to be tackled. She apologized then, and stroked my knee, which I quickly moved away, beginning to be irritated. (Alice is an unusually tactile person, but I’d told her several times before that physical contact like that between us in public was inappropriate. She’s not at all unattractive, so I knew people would jump to conclusions.) I took a break and made my way along the corridor to find a Gents.
I admit I did then start to wonder whether Alice was partly right, and whether I could moderate my tone a bit, if not my fundamental stance. I mean, the evidence of the impact of illegal immigration wasn’t yet clear – how could it be, if these people are under the radar? – though the constituents were convinced. But I had to take a line. Voters like a strong line. I just wished Nina would let me run this kind of issue by her. I’ve always been open to talking about her work, about the arts scene, all that. My head was pounding, and I was reprimanding myself for letting Alice persuade me into that last bottle of wine the night before, wishing I’d got the evening train home so I could have read Clara a bedtime story and played a bit of piano – and that was when I saw him. Your Mr Kelati. Standing in the toilet doorway talking with the conductor.
It didn’t look friendly, so I intuited pretty quickly what was going on. I took a few steps closer to try to hear what they were saying; having just come from that conversation with Alice I was particularly intrigued to see someone like him in the flesh, caught in the act. He looked like a tramp, quite frankly, smelled like one too, and had a heavy African accent. As I was trying to overhear, it occurred to me to snap a photo of the two of them, thinking I might blog about it as part of the public conversation. I still couldn’t quite make out the words, but then I saw him wince and clutch his stomach, which looked entirely fake to me, and I managed to capture it in another shot, but the conductor seemed to be developing a sympathetic look on his face. And then, to my disbelief, he patted the guy on the shoulder and began to turn away, with no ticket or anything being handed over! So I snapped once more, then cleared my throat and said, ‘Excuse me, but as a paying customer I’d like to check that appropriate action is being taken if people are travelling without tickets.’
‘Well, I’ve dealt with it appropriately,’ the conductor said, rather abruptly. ‘So please go ahead and enjoy your journey.’
‘But I didn’t see a ticket,’ I persisted, and then asked the guy to show me his ticket. My head was exploding and I thought there was a good chance I might be physically sick, but I also felt that I was now engaging in a tiny act of heroism on behalf of the constituents that I could tell Alice about.
Anyway, the conductor obviously felt his pride was at stake. He said, ‘Hang on – what right have you got to make demands? Are you police?’
I contemplated pretending I was for a second. ‘I’m the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Great Grimsby, and I’m asking this as a representative of people who are deeply concerned about illegal migration and its consequences,’ was what I said. I expect I sounded deeply pompous but it was true.
He rolled his eyes and told me to ‘drop it’.
‘Excuse me?’ I said. ‘I’m perfectly free to ask a question if I want, like any other conscientious citizen. But if you’re unable or unwilling to answer me, I’ve got a photo of your exchange—’
‘Oh, do what you like with your photo,’ he said, and proceeded to call me the f word, before shoving past me into the next carriage to check more tickets! Unbelievable. When I turned to your guy, he was gone too. of course he was.
At least the loo became free eventually. I locked the door behind me and sat on the lid, looking at the photo I’d taken, zooming into the guy’s face, then out, and wondering how best to encapsulate what I wanted to say about the incident on my blog without sounding too sensational. It’s a lot of pressure on a candidate, in this day and age, being expected to blog all the time, and make sure you say the right things in the right words. I wasn’t being an arse by publishing his photo, was I? No, I thought – this was exactly my point about the difference between illegal scammers and genuine refugees that I had been trying to make, and a photo can say a thousand words. So I went for: Came across this illegal immigrant on the train without a ticket today. It brought home voters’ rightful concern about the rising influx. That was about as measured but proactive, clear and firm as I could make it. Then I realized that wording might make me sound as if I hadn’t already been on the case, so I changed brought home to reminded me of.
If I hadn’t looked at the photo and thought about the exchange at such length so I could write about it, I would never have recognized the guy the next time I saw him. I didn’t spot him when we changed trains, and it’s frankly bizarre that I came across him again at all, never mind in my mother-in-law’s kitchen! I haven’t even got to that bit yet.
In hindsight I do feel like a bit of a numpty about that whole encounter, which was probably tied up with my elephantine hangover, and election stress, and my discomfort over Alice boundaries – which I should have nipped straight in the bud – and with Nina censoring me at home. If only I’d just stayed back, watched from a distance and called 999, I could’ve got the police to anticipate him in London at the station and they could have investigated properly. I can tell from your expression that you think that’s vindictive. But remember, other passengers had paid, and this guy was travelling illegally. Likewise, he could just have claimed asylum when he got here, but he chose not to. And his illegality didn’t stop there, did it? But anyway, I bungled it, so he continued on his merry way.
Chapter 6: Yonas (#ulink_b7bb08db-4b38-5aca-90e1-d70785d7ddc1)
RAPIST ASYLUM SEEKER WHO DUMPED VICTIM ON RUBBISH TIP IS RELEASED AFTER BEING TWO HOURS AWAY FROM DEPORTATION
The toilet door snapped shut and Yonas let out a long breath. The space was tiny, but for a train toilet it was amazingly clean. It barely even smelled of toilet. He looked cautiously into the tiny mirror above the sink – then jerked away. Surely that bearded scarecrow wasn’t really him. He splashed his face, reached for the snail of toilet roll, dabbed a soft wad of it against his cheeks, stuffed some in his pocket for later, then sat down on the toilet lid to think. He failed to stop himself replaying Osman’s ruby-red eyes, those crooked toes…
Slowly and smoothly, so that he could barely feel it, the train moved off. The glass of the little window was clouded. Yonas managed to shove it open an inch, then leaned onto the edge of the sink and stared out of the gap at the receding station. Rows of neat houses passed by, more and more quickly, before all the buildings petered out, giving way to rolling green fields and low, misty skies, leaving Osman and Gebre behind.
Yonas dropped his head to his knees and groaned. What was Gebre thinking, staying on? They’d gone through so much together to get to this country. Why did it have to end with an argument?
‘Okay, we need to leave in five,’ Yonas had whispered. ‘Ready?’
Gebre had followed him silently outside. ‘I don’t know what your genius plan is,’ he said when they were round the corner, ‘but we can’t leave Osman. He’s still not speaking and he can’t walk – it’s our fault.’
‘It’s not our fault!’
‘It kind of is. We can’t abandon him.’
‘He’s in a bad way, but he’ll recover – Abraham did, remember? And if we get out of here we have a chance to rescue him; we can report Aziz, and that way Osman might be taken to hospital, or a safe home of some kind – he’s only a kid, they’ll go easy on him.’
‘So how would we report Aziz, then? By turning ourselves in?’
‘There must be a way.’
‘Osman wanted to come with us.’
‘Well, he can’t now,’ Yonas found himself snapping. ‘Look, the others are taking care of him, and Aziz will leave him alone after this. Plus, if we leave it’ll teach the bastard that torture doesn’t work.’
‘It could make him do it more. To the others.’
‘Well then, the same could apply to us. We need to survive, Gebre. I have to earn some money to send to Melat… Look, here’s the plan – we hitch a ride on the rubbish truck. If it works we’ll be miles away in minutes. And it’s about to arrive – have you got your photo?’
‘We can’t get on a rubbish truck in daylight! The driver will see us.’
‘He might not. We’ve done much riskier things. Gebre, I cannot stay one day longer with that monster. And we don’t have to – we’re not in prison any more.’
‘Well, I don’t like it either, but I’m not going to run off now and get into more trouble just because you’ve suddenly decided it’s time. I’m done with your reckless plans – if it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have got ourselves into prison in the first place.’
‘But… Gebre, it was a joint project! We had to tell the world…’
‘No, you came up with the idea, and I followed, like always. Well, not any more.’
‘But we got all the way here, didn’t we? Come on, the rubbish truck will be here any second! We’re not seriously going to split now?’
‘If you won’t wait, then go. I’ve always dragged you down anyway.’
‘No…’
But Gebre had already turned his back and walked inside. Yonas wanted to yell at him to come back, but that would alert Aziz, and he could already hear the rumble coming down the track.
Bang bang bang. Yonas jerked up straight. The handle of the train toilet door rattled, and then… nothing. After a few seconds, he relaxed a little and listened to the gentle chunters and rumbles of the train as it grunted towards his new life. So, he and Gebre were apart. For a while. But Gebre would follow soon. It would be easy enough for them to find each other – he had memorized Auntie’s number too. And maybe he would bring Osman along, fully recovered, and Yonas and Auntie could help them both get settled. In the meantime, there was no point regretting the decision to go. The deed was done and it was just too painful to dwell on separation from Gebre, just as it was on leaving Melat, leaving Eritrea – he had to focus on the now, on the near future, on survival practicalities. Top priority: getting off the train without getting caught, and then getting some coins together to phone Auntie. From her house he would be able to phone Melat, tell her he’d made it, and find out how they were all doing. He might even get time to tell her a bit about what England was like, about these scenes out of the train window, rolling velvety hills, plump clumps of trees, cotton-wool sheep swimming in verdant grass…
But she would ask after Gebre. What would he say? She was a bit like a big sister to him too, ever since his father was disappeared all those years ago. The train shuddered past an old church spire, a farm, some glossy black cows, a sports car whizzing along a perfectly tarmacked road…
Yonas wished he could tell Gebre how simple it had been to escape after all. More than that – when ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ came on the radio, while he sat there in the truck next to Bin Man Joe, as if he were getting a lift from an old friend, it had felt like fate, like it was meant to happen exactly that way, almost like his father was sitting in the back, singing along out of tune, getting ready to tell his son for the hundredth time how, when he was studying in America, every student knew the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s songs, because they meant freedom… If only he could tell his father that he’d finally made it to the UK! Even fifteen years on, he couldn’t shake the ridiculous idea in the back of his mind that his parents might both reappear one day, open a door when he least expected it, laughing as if they had been playing an attenuated game of hide and seek all this time. He leaned his forehead against the window and felt it judder, bouncing his brain around in his skull, and it took him back to that trip on the steam train to the beach at Massawa with his family when he was little, how he’d craned out of the window in awe at the rugged brown mountains and the dazzling sapphire skein of the Red Sea…
This train will shortly be arriving at Doncaster. Change here for trains to London King’s Cross.
Yonas leapt up from the toilet seat and stood, poised for a swift exit. When the train shuddered to a halt, he unlocked the toilet door, slipped out and stepped off. He walked to the opposite platform and stood against a wall, making sure nobody had seen him, before figuring out which platform the next London train was going from, then went to wait at the far end of it, behind a pillar. The next train to arrive – on – platform – three…
He got on last, beelined for another toilet and took possession, felt himself breathe again. He sat on the loo, propped his arms on the edge of the sink unit and cradled his heavy forehead, allowing it to roll gently from side to side.
It was a strange moment when Bin Man Joe drove off, leaving him outside the station alone. He’d felt naked and vulnerable and, for the first time, black. Literally everyone walking past him was white, luminously pale – a procession of ghosts. He became conscious that he was wearing his dirty overalls still, while the men all wore smart jeans or branded trainers, Nike, Adidas, Reebok… And the girls! Yonas hadn’t seen a female human being for months. He watched a couple of slick-haired teenage girls go by arm in arm, cheeping with giggles, their jeans clinging so tightly that they showed every curve, and he imagined Sarama outshining all of them in her baggy camouflage.
Bang b-bang bang. Bang bang.
Yonas jerked awake. More knocks, louder. He rubbed his eyes.
Bang bang bang bang.
This person was persistent. Yonas flushed. He needed to pee now, after sitting on the toilet for hours without lifting the lid. He decided he would try. This was the purpose of a toilet, after all.
Bang bang bang bang bang.
‘Just a minute.’ His bladder was bursting but nothing would come out – he was too panicked. He zipped up, cleared his throat and unlocked the door.
‘Ticket, please, sir.’ An official-looking man was standing in the corridor with a small machine in his hands, and a blonde woman with a child were behind him, staring.
Yonas swallowed. ‘But, I already…’
‘You’ve been in here for a while now, sir.’
Yonas’s kneecaps turned to goo. ‘I just came in,’ he said.
‘No you didn’t!’ the woman shrilled. ‘We’ve been waiting ages! My little girl here needs a wee. Come on, Evie.’ She shoved her child ahead of her, past Yonas, followed her into the toilet and locked the door to his sanctuary.
Yonas gulped. ‘I have a stomach problem,’ he improvised, then grimaced and clutched his belly, leaning over as if in agony, thinking of his ballooning bladder. He did feel pretty ill right now – though that was probably the terror.
‘I still need your ticket, sir,’ the conductor said flatly.
Yonas straightened up, trying to think fast. Behind the conductor, he noticed a smart man in a suit, with blond hair and glasses, who seemed to be watching disapprovingly. He felt inside his empty pockets, as if he were about to find a crisp orange train ticket in there, and squeezed his little wooden rooster so hard the beak almost pierced his skin. Then he looked up at the conductor again, into those pale hazel eyes, trying to connect, to convey wordlessly how badly he needed his help. ‘Sir, I do not know where the ticket has gone,’ he said quietly. ‘I must have dropped it. I am sorry – I am not myself today. I have just heard that… my brother and my parents have been killed.’
The conductor’s face warped into an expression that was both sceptical and slightly aghast. Yonas imagined his own face in it, like a mirror, the moment when he first heard that news. It was so vivid still, that day, back in the revolutionary school – he was preparing to put on his first play, setting up the tarpaulin stage under an acacia tree, with Gebre’s set painted onto old sheets, hardly able to contain his excitement about the moment when the actors stepped in front of the audience… when they were interrupted. Yonas and Melat. Come with me. The commander. What had they done wrong? I have bad news for you. There was a surprise attack today, by enemy MiGs. Your parents and brothers were hit… The assault of those words, their cold, factual finality. . .
A hand was patting his back. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that, mate,’ the conductor said, his voice softer than before. ‘But I do still need to check your ticket. You sure you’ve lost it?’
Yonas jabbed his fingers in his pockets once more. But the conductor squeezed his arm.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Look, just make sure you hold onto it next time, okay?’
Yonas looked up at him, astounded, but just nodded mutely.
And then he heard a series of clicks, camera-like. Behind the conductor, that blond man was holding something in the air. Yonas tensed. Who was he? Why would he be taking pictures? Was he plainclothes police? Immigration? There was nowhere to run…
Sure enough, the man approached the conductor and asked if this passenger was travelling with a valid ticket. Yonas bit the insides of his cheeks. But then, bizarrely, the conductor told the man to back off and mind his own business. This seemed to anger the blond man who then claimed he was a politician. As the two men locked horns, Yonas saw his chance to slip away.
Down in the furthest carriage, the toilet was occupied, so he slouched down into a seat, so the top of his head couldn’t be seen from behind. He realized he was rubbing his scarred fingertips together: a tic he’d developed since they were burned, as if he could magic the sensitivity back. Across the aisle an elderly lady was looking at him sideways, but when she saw him turn to her, she immediately pretended to return to reading her newspaper. She was wearing pristine pointed leather shoes and her hair was set in immaculate ringlets, like a wig, so white it was almost purple. Maybe it was actually a very pale purple. The headline on her newspaper read:
SMUGGLING GANGS WANT TO SNEAK CALAIS MIGRANTS INTO BRITAIN TO COMMIT CRIMES HERE
Yonas turned to look out of the window. Unseeing, he clasped his hands, felt the sharpness of his nails digging into his knuckles. He wondered how many smuggled migrants like him there were in the UK right now. And where were they all? How many of them had claimed asylum? He supposed he’d meet some more when he got to London. He wished he didn’t have to find his way all on his own. He already missed Gebre like a limb.
At King’s Cross Station, announcements boomed from the tannoy like a robotic priest’s pronouncements across the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people on the concourse. Yonas weaved slowly through them, thinking how strange it was to be surrounded by so much energetic life. White faces might even be a minority here, he was pleased to note. There were lots of other black and African faces around, and also Chinese faces, Indian faces, Hispanic faces and faces with features he couldn’t place, so he didn’t feel like he stood out too much. But he did seem to be the only person in the entire station who wasn’t attempting to rush for a train, or staring with an anxious frown up at the departure board.
He leaned against a pillar in front of a coffee shop, closed his eyes to inhale the scent, and was right back in the Asmara house, walking down the stairs and towards the intoxicating aroma of roasting coffee beans emanating from the kitchen, mingled with incense and song. His mother, by the stove, her voice filling the room, wearing her favourite outfit, the burnt-orange wrap skirt and blouse resplendent with palm leaf patterns.
He looked inside, and watched the baristas standing at sleek chrome machines, bashing coffee grounds out of a filter gadget, refilling, locking the gadget into the machine and putting blue paper cups underneath to catch ebony streams of espresso. A perfect-looking concoction in seconds. He thought of how long it took his mother and Melat to make coffee, the traditional way: how they would measure out the bright green beans, pour them into a menkeshkesh, roast them until they were dark brown, grind them with a pestle and mortar, pour them into a jebena, heat and fan it on the stove, boil the liquid several times, filter it through date fibres… Melat loathed the ritual, but their mother insisted on it whenever guests were invited over. The rest of the time they all used a metal Italian espresso maker that his grandfather had acquired when it was left behind by the colonizers. Yonas and Melat both liked the coffee that came out of that just as well: sacrilege, according to their mother and grandmother. It was so long now since he’d had any kind of coffee. He watched the customers process out of the shop, blue paper cups of deliciousness carried unthinkingly in their hands.
A couple of sleek-haired ladies in high heels clip-clopped past, and the blonde one glanced at Yonas and wrinkled her nose. A targeted wrinkle. A clear message. He looked down at his overalls and tilted his head down to sniff his armpit discreetly. Bad. Of course it was bad. It was just hard to tell quite how repellent you were to others when you had got used to your own smell. Not just body odour – he probably reeked of fish guts as well. The thought prompted him to scan around for Aziz or Blackjack… but why would they be here? They were just small-time con artists. They’d never actually come after him, just as he’d told Gebre.
Outside the station, a road heaved with revving cars and grand, grumbling red buses, black taxis as glossy as aubergines and intent cyclists with helmets on, zipping through tiny gaps. It was all so loud, so intense… Yonas felt the sharp edge between pleasurable anonymity and terrifying loneliness. But he had to focus on the task at hand: to source some coins and call Auntie. He wondered whether she lived far from here, what she would look like, what she would be like, whether she would be as smiling and maternal as he imagined, whether she would be able to offer him a floor to sleep on, even just for a few nights. Surely she would be generous enough for that – she’d known his mother well, according to Melat. But even Melat had never actually met this Auntie. She had just read out her number to him over that crackly line. He’d written it onto the back of his hand, repeated it aloud over and over, and then he and Gebre had spent the next few evenings testing each other on it.
He went up to a couple of people, asking them if they had a coin for him to make a local phone call, but they just shook their heads and said ‘sorry’, as if the thing they were really sorry about was that their walk had been interrupted. He gave up, and walked slowly around, scanning the ground for dropped change, wondering if he would have to ask somebody to borrow their mobile phone or sit down and cup his hands, until, behind a kiosk selling newspapers and sweets, he spotted a silver glint. He squatted down. It was a small, angular, silver coin – twenty pence! He brushed off the dirt, examined the image of the Queen, who looked surprisingly pretty and young, and then looked around for a phone box.
When he found one, he was so anxious to get the coin in the slot that it sprang out and bounced on the floor, nearly rolling out of the booth. He rescued it, put it in with more care, and dialled the number. Auntie, it is me, Yonas! I am here! How do I find you? A quiet stuttering on the line, as he waited for the ring, but instead there sounded three notes rising in pitch, then again, then again. ‘This number is not recognized,’ a curt woman’s voice informed him. He must have mistyped. He tried again, more carefully, concentrating on every button. The same three notes. ‘This number is not recognized…’ He let it repeat a few times, then dropped the receiver so it hung from its cable, groaned low and long, and sank down to his knees on the grubby floor. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them, and fixated on the abandoned Coke can and globs of old chewing gum stuck in the corner. Had he memorized Auntie’s number wrongly? Surely not – he’d checked, and repeated it, so many times. Had he written it down wrong? Again, impossible – the line was crackly, but he’d had Melat repeat it twice. So had she been given the wrong number? Or had Auntie left the place where she was living? He would have to ask Melat when he had enough money for a long-distance call. If only he had an address for Auntie. What was he supposed to do now?
He stood up, pocketed the coin, and looked out at all the people passing by, each intent on a mission to get from A to B, to meet friends, family, to do business. If only he had someone to seek out in London, just one face that would light up in recognition and welcome and congratulate him for making it. But he had to deal with the situation he was in. The sensible thing would be to focus on finding some random Eritreans who could help him find a foothold. He’d heard that a couple of old army friends from back home were in the UK, but he had no idea where, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to see them anyway. Amanuel, that distant cousin he’d met once, was supposed to be in Scotland…
Scanning the crowds for an approachable face, he spotted a woman who looked like she just might be Eritrean, with a curly cloud of black hair tied up. He remembered Melat styling hers just like that once.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘can I ask where you are from?’
‘Er, London,’ the woman said, looking faintly disgusted.
‘Oh right. I thought—’
‘Sorry, I’m running late.’
Yonas leaned against a wall. If he did spot an Eritrean who had time to talk to him, would he actually want to join an Eritrean diaspora community? He would inevitably be drawn into ferocious debates about the President and the current situation, and he’d be expected to go to church, and they’d quiz him on his past and he’d have to churn up experiences he didn’t want to share, not yet, maybe not ever, if he was going to keep going and stay positive. What he really wanted was a fresh start in this city, to make new friends here, British friends, generous people like Bin Man Joe who liked singing along to Bob Dylan, who didn’t have a clue about Eritrea and didn’t even want to know what side he was on, who could help him reinvent himself and show him the best way to live well in the UK and feel like a native. But what would his strategy be for doing that, and for finding work and a place to sleep? He couldn’t just linger here. He decided to walk while he thought, absorb the scenery, and keep an eye open for opportunities. Something would occur to him.
He picked up his bag, then strode out along the street. Caught up in the flow of people, like a leaf coasting along the surface of a river, he felt a surge of excitement. He was finally here, in London – and he was free! Freer than he’d ever been, without any commitments, tasks or other people to be responsible for – except Melat and the family back home, of course. His feet were pressing on London’s pavements, his eyes feasting on London’s oversized office blocks and London’s shiny shops, his ears were filling with the vibrations of London’s traffic, his mouth and lungs saturated by London’s bitter air, and he was now one of the masses of London people, who were all so different, not just racially, but in how they dressed: he had expected reams of smart suits, but there was a woman with a purple coat and a rucksack covered in spikes, and there was an Asian girl with a red streak in her hair and a tattoo sprawling down her neck, and there was a man with a thick, black, rectangular beard and skintight jeans that made him look top-heavy.
He noticed that there seemed to be an unwritten agreement to avoid smiles, or any kind of eye contact with other pedestrians except when absolutely necessary. Was it just his stinky self? But no – even when people stepped aside to let others pass, he noticed, they never seemed to look at each other either. Probably because they were all in such a rush, which made sense in somewhere as busy as London; but he wondered if there was any street in this city comparable to Asmara’s tree-lined Independence Avenue, where people would just wander along slowly, hand in hand with friends, sit outside espresso bars, watch the world go by, exchange greetings.
He stopped short in front of large metal sign outside an office block that read:
theguardian
The Observer
Was this really the headquarters of the famous newspaper? How fortuitous that he’d just happened to walk past it! Was it a sign? He paused, and imagined himself dressed in a pristine suit with a crisp shirt, briefcase in hand, getting ready to walk into the building. I’ m here for an interview, he’d tell the receptionist assuredly. Yes, for the columnist job. A woman came out of the building, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, pulling her mobile phone out of her pocket, making a call as she passed him. Did she work in there, dressed like that? Was that normal here? What did he know? What would he ever know about the world of journalists in this city? Another woman came out, and gave him a long look – which prompted him to carry on walking. He couldn’t be caught loitering outside somewhere important like that. Realistically, he would probably never get to walk inside such an office except to clean it.
Cleaning toilets for small change donations in a run-down shopping mall or something: that was the kind of ambition he knew he should content himself with, at least at the beginning. But how would he even land a job like that, with no connections? Should he find a run-down shopping centre, wait nearby in a discreet spot until it closed and cleaners arrived, then dash over and enquire about work? But there didn’t seem to be any shopping centres around here, or anything particularly run-down. Perhaps he’d be better off away from the city centre and its elite workplaces, where police would no doubt be hyper-alert to scruffy, reeking black men…
The name Canning Town popped into his head. Bin Man Joe had said his brother lived there, that it was in the east of London. It was a bit random, but why not? The brother had moved there not long ago and found work, so why shouldn’t he? He looked around for someone to ask directions. A black lady with a wide smile was leaning against a wall, chatting on her phone, and cackling every so often with an infectious wheeze. He waited until she’d hung up, then approached her. ‘Excuse me. I’m trying to find Canning Town.’
She frowned. ‘Canning Town? What’s that on – Jubilee, I think.’ Yonas wondered whether the meaning of this should be obvious. ‘Take the un-der-ground train,’ she said, splitting the syllables as if he were deaf. ‘Farringdon’s just over there. Good luck!’ She walked off briskly, as if she didn’t want to be seen with him for another second.
Inside this station entrance, Yonas came up against a row of waist-high electronic gates. He looked up to see CCTV cameras perched like hawks. He would have to walk. Not the end of the world; he could tell from the sun which way was east.
Shortly, the afternoon dimmed, dusk intensified, doubt and hunger set in. Having strayed from the main roads, Yonas found himself wandering a network of residential streets. The houses around him were tall and elegant and forbidding, and long windows wore neat flower boxes underneath like military moustaches. A glow from a basement drew him over. Peering down, he saw a cream-coloured kitchen, spacious and clean, with wide counters. On one of them sat a fruit bowl, piled with apples, bananas and oranges and – yes – a mango. Yonas was tempted to force open the window, leap down, grab it and bite right into it. He could just make out the smell of something deliciously savoury. Curved lamps in corners cast a warm glow. When he crouched, he could see a candlelit table at the back, around which two parents and three children were eating spaghetti and laughing. He pictured his mother staggering to the table with a huge, steaming pot for her rambunctious brood and it struck him anew that he would not only never see her again, he would probably never see any of them again, and he would be lucky if he ended up with any kind of family of his own. Even with a table of his own.
He continued along more residential streets, past some apartment blocks and up some dead-end roads, until he was so tired his bones ached. He spotted a wide doorstep, big enough for a curled-up body. Nobody was around. He sat down, hooked his feet up beside him, eased down into a foetal position, and nestled his head in the crook of his arm, feeling like he had just climbed into a cold stone coffin. He pulled his wooden rooster out of his pocket. Just me and you, little friend, he whispered, stroking it with the top of his fingertip – the few millimetres between the nail and the scarring. He thought about what would happen if he died here. Nobody would have a funeral for him. What did the UK authorities do with random African bodies found on the streets? Burn them? He imagined being stuffed in a bin bag, then deposited on a pile of other vagrants, and tossed into a vast, bright, smoky fire, crackling and fizzling with amber, gold, orange, red, his trousers catching, the flames licking eagerly up his legs, but it didn’t feel hot, oddly, it somehow felt cold, numbing, stiffening…
He sat up, panicking, then rubbed his eyes. Daylight! He must have been asleep for hours. He was chilly, but intact. And alone. Utterly alone. No Gebre to consult with about what to do next. He watched the scattered white clouds drift for a minute or two across a faintly blue sky, imagining them floating gently over the ocean towards Eritrea. Then he got up jerkily, and staggered towards the sound of traffic.
Back on a main road, car horns blared like a tin pan band. His mouth was sour – all he wanted right now was a drink of water and a pee. He managed to blag some tap water from a small café, and the girl behind the counter reluctantly allowed him to use their toilet. The warm water from the tap on his hands and face felt delightful, the hand drier even better. Could he get away with a full body wash? Someone would inevitably knock on the door again. He wiped his armpits cursorily, and slipped back out.
By midday he found himself amid a glass forest. Here were the smart suits he’d been expecting to see everywhere in this city, the immaculate hair-dos, and each person he passed was talking on a phone, texting or listening to something through headphones. He passed a particularly well-tailored suit, whose owner’s face was so glum that Yonas was tempted to stop him and ask: What could possibly be so bad in your life? Do you want to swap? He imagined the man walking through his front door back home, no doubt in a splendid Victorian house, hanging up that fine jacket as if it were an invisibility cloak, then hearing his children rush down the stairs shouting Daddy! Daddy! Would he finally crack a smile then?
A trio walked past eating what looked like lumps of rice wrapped in black paper out of cardboard trays. One of the women was whining: ‘He didn’t even offer to pay. I was like, hello, I’m a feminist and stuff but, like, I still want my first date paid for.’ The other woman cooed sympathetically, and one chucked her box in the bin with at least half the contents left in it. Yonas walked over to the bin, eager, mouth watering for whatever the food was – but he couldn’t bring himself to dig in. Not yet. And not here. It was too conspicuous.
He decided to carry on, but regretted that decision as his hunger deepened. Crowded though the pavement was, he noticed people were staring at him, and giving him as wide a berth as possible. He was tempted to walk into one of the shops displaying geometrically ironed shirts and trousers, take a few sets into a changing room to try on, leave his rancid overalls on the floor and walk out again.
His energy was plummeting now. He passed the open door of a corner shop, lined with brightly wrapped chocolate bars, and paused, salivating. Could he slip one in his pocket without being noticed? But the shop owner, an Indian man, gave him a hard stare, and he retreated. He was just turning another corner and summoning up the will to dig in a bin after all, when he spotted a man serving hot food from a cart to a queue of people. Several were already standing around eating it off paper plates… it looked like rice and curry. And then he noticed what seemed too good to be true: people were accepting it without giving the server any money! He sidled up to a man who’d just started tucking into his plateful to ask if he really just took it without paying.
‘Mate, you’d better believe it.’ He laughed, spraying out a couple of bits of rice. ‘Those Hare Krishna dudes.’
‘Krishna?’
‘Yeah, it’s a kind of religion where you have to give food away for free. Some people call them crazy bastards but hey, I’m not about to sniff at a complimentary lunch. Even if it is veggie.’
‘You have to be a believer?’
‘Na, mate, anyone can just take the nosh and those dudes are happy.’
As Yonas queued, saliva now exploding inside his cheeks at such a rate it was hard to swallow, he imagined the clamour there would be if a free food cart were to materialize at home. People would probably stay away, thinking it was a government trap. Finally his own plate was piled up, and he started shovelling food into his mouth. It was so good to eat! His tongue was immediately scalded, but he gobbled on regardless, almost ecstatic at the spices, the vegetables! Maybe this was the turning point. If he could pick up free meals as tasty as this on the street, life in the UK would be a breeze.
After a second helping, he headed eastwards again, re-energized. The city around him became multidimensional and multi-layered as he started connecting everything he saw with sparks of memory, films, BBC news clips, old magazines, his father’s books. He noticed how many of the shiny shopfronts at ground-floor level were sitting at the feet of grand historic buildings, and how they were interspersed haphazardly among modern, linear blocks, and how all of them were in such good condition, none of them crumbling or dripping with telephone wires, and how every so often there would be little grassy parks and trees spreading nature through the city like a sprinkling of herbs on a salad. Passing one of these parks, he paused to watch a guy with a paunch being egged on by someone who looked like a personal trainer as he skipped furiously and kept tripping over his rope. A short distance away there was a wheelchair and a woman with a prosthetic leg next to it, doing press-ups. If only Sheshy could get a prosthetic in that league; it looked futuristic compared to the ones the martyrs got back home.
He was about to cross at a junction when he saw a van pull up with a huge black advert plastered on its side:
In the UK illegally?
GO HOME OR FACE ARREST
Text HOME to 78080
And in a square box in the top corner of the van, like an official passport stamp, it said:
106
ARRESTS
LAST WEEK
IN YOUR AREA
His stomach clenched, and he stopped dead still. He couldn’t see in the windows, couldn’t tell whether or not the driver had clocked him. He glanced down at his scruffy clothes, his shabby shoes, touched his matted hair, and nearly laughed at himself for not being more conscious of how obviously illegal he looked. He might as well be waving a flag saying Arrest me! What should he do? Was there someone in that van poised to jump out and make the 107th arrest? He couldn’t cross the road right in front of it. Not now. But then if he turned and ran it would look suspicious… He crouched and pretended to do up his shoelace, making himself as small as possible. Time crawled, except for the demonic pounding of his heart. But after what can only have been a few seconds, the lights changed and the van pulled off.
Slowly, creakily, Yonas got up, and carried on walking, feeling as stilted as an old man. He was an idiot to think it might be easy just to wander around and make a life in London, like moulding a new version of himself out of a fresh piece of clay. How could he avoid getting arrested just for looking like this, never mind find work and somewhere to live? Maybe Gebre was right about waiting longer at the factory for fake papers… But he was here now. He had to keep going, and find somewhere to have a wash and get fresh clothes. But then he halted again, as he saw, walking towards him, a broad-shouldered white man dressed all in black wearing sunglasses… Oh God, it was… no, it wasn’t, was it? Of course it wasn’t. Yonas sighed shakily, and walked on.
Finally, he came upon a sign for Canning Town. From the name he had expected a small suburb full of pretty houses lined up neatly like tin cans in a supermarket, and he’d half-convinced himself he’d bump into a man who would look like the double of Bin Man Joe, just strolling along with his family, shielding his eyes with one hand as he looked around for his new Eritrean nephew. Instead, Yonas found himself on a highway under a huge concrete road underpass, roaring with cars, and after that, in the middle of an industrial estate. It didn’t seem as if anybody lived here at all. There was just factory building after factory building. What a stupid decision to come here just because of Bin Man Joe, when he could have gone somewhere like Arsenal, or Chelsea, or, more practically, sought out an Eritrean church… But then he spotted a human being. A man, youngish, maybe about his age, wearing overalls. Yonas was just wondering whether to approach him, when the man saw him, and crossed the road towards him, walking fast. Yonas’s heart raced – why was he being approached? Was he about to get arrested? Mugged? If so, his total lack of valuable belongings would either leave him unscathed or infuriate his attacker…
They were now standing face to face on the pavement. There was nobody else around. ‘Hi,’ the man said, not exactly threateningly. If this was a mugging, it was a strange way to go about it. The man had messy black hair and creases around his eyes. ‘You are looking for work?’
Yonas laughed involuntarily. ‘How did you guess?’
‘Smells like you need somewhere for sleep too,’ the man said, and smiled back, revealing a gap between his front teeth.
Yonas nodded. ‘You know somewhere?’
‘I do. I am happy I found you. You stay, then I get commission, okay?’
‘Maybe, but I do not know yet what you are offering me.’
‘Good point. I take you to see Uncle. Follow me.’
Uncle? Friendly or sinister? Maybe it was fate: lose an auntie, gain an uncle. Yonas followed the man through a gate into the potholed forecourt of a large building, along a narrow gap between the left wall and the fence.
The man turned as he walked. ‘What is your name?’
‘My name?’ Yonas thought frantically, then remembered the bin man. ‘My name is… Joe.’
‘Joe, yeah?’ the man said. ‘And where you come from?’
‘Eritrea. And you?’
‘Emil. From Romania.’ Emil pulled out a key and unlocked a side door, then led Yonas down a dimly lit corridor and up some concrete stairs to another door, on which he knocked three times. The words ‘come in’ floated out.
Inside, a grey-haired man with knitted eyebrows was sitting behind a computer, with three stooping table lamps poised around him like water birds. He didn’t look up. Emil cleared his throat. ‘Uncle, this is new guy. He say his name Joe. Eritrean. Been sleeping rough.’
Uncle appeared to ignore them and continued typing with two fingers. Was this going to be another Aziz? He could hardly look more different: gaunt, with a crooked nose, pointed shoulders and spindly fingers that looked as if they might snap at the next tap. After a little while he looked up, and his eyes were two spikes. ‘So. Joe. You are new to the UK?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know nobody here.’
‘No. I mean, I thought I did, but they… No, I know nobody.’
‘You are willing to work hard?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. If I let you stay here, there are rules to follow.’ Uncle pushed his chair back, stood up and walked around to the front of the desk on which he perched and leaned forward, his dark eyes locking in. ‘How are you at following rules?’
‘Good.’
‘Well, my rules are simple enough. One’ – Uncle stuck up his forefinger – ‘I arrange the work. Two’ – middle finger – ‘you do as much work as I tell you to do, and you don’t work for anyone else. Three’ – ring finger – ‘you never – ever – tell anyone outside about how you got the work or anything about this place. Got it?’
Yonas nodded.
‘You haven’t seen the film, have you?’
Yonas shook his head.
‘Fine. Anyway, if you’ve got the rest, the correct answer would be yes.’
‘Yes,’ Yonas echoed.
‘Because if you talk we are all going to get into trouble. Do you know the meaning of the word trouble?’
‘I do.’
‘Good. If you imagine to yourself the worst possible kinds of trouble, then you’re on the right track.’ I don’t need to imagine, Yonas thought. ‘So, blend in. Don’t get yourself noticed. Keep yourself to yourself. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
Uncle got off the desk and began to pace around the room. ‘Good. You can stay for a trial week. You will do a mixture of work. Construction, cleaning and such like. You will get forty quid a week cash in hand from me, for working however many hours I tell you to work, normally around eight hours a day, for six days per week. In return you get to live here and sleep here for free and I give you work clothes to wear – which it looks like you need right now. If you want to leave I need two weeks’ notice. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ Yonas said immediately. He fought with the corners of his mouth to stop them from smiling.
‘Right. Here’s a tenner to tide you over.’ Yonas took the note and held it gently between his fingers as if it were pressed from gold. He imagined telling Gebre: Only day three, and I’m already in the money, with a real job, and a place to live! Was Gebre wishing he’d followed after all? Or was he still cursing Yonas for abandoning him and Osman?
‘Any questions?’ Uncle asked.
Yonas thought for a second. ‘What’s the film?’ he found himself asking.
‘The film! Oh. Well, I’m not giving it away that easily. You can ask the others. There’s a TV in the living area, so if it’s coming on I may let you know. Now, scarper. I suggest you prioritize a shower.’
Chapter 7: Emil (#ulink_55894d15-8464-55ba-bace-b02f85b4c35d)
UK IMMIGRATION SHOCK 150,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ENTER UK EACH YEAR, SAYS WHISTLEBLOWER EX-HOME OFFICE BOSS
I will take one espresso macchiato, and two spoon sugar. Okay three, just today.
So, you wanna talk about Professor Jojo! Haha, yeah, that’s how I call him, but when I first met him in street, Professor was like opposite word I would think of, okay, I had to even hold my breath, like he smell of shit mix with rotten fish and mouldy cheese in big bag of rubbish when you leave too long before taking outside. You got my point. But when I am looking closer I am thinking: Wait. Nice smile, tall, cheekbones, huuuuge fro all matted and disgusting like rats living inside – but with a proper wash it’s gonna look good! I am even getting a little fantasy…
I can talk about it now, with you, no problem. But back when I meet the Prof, no way. I am so much hoping for another gay to come to live in warehouse, you cannot believe, but I can’t say nothing. I mean, I came to UK because everyone said London scene is awesome and people easy-going compare to rest of Europe – Romania anyway – so I think, okay, maybe there I can be me. But when I arrive I cannot even get work to pay rent, not even think about going out, clubbing, all that. I mean, London is so expensive, so, so, so, SO expensive, it’s not even true. Even room size of small cupboard in shittest area is too much money. So after some time I was living with a load of straight, immigrant guys in warehouse. I mean, not even proper house – this big, old place where they used to repair cars, with one big room out back full of mattresses. Some guys living there even more gay haters than back home. Russians especially. So I try to keep secret, and in case they guess, I am always try to be comedian, so they will like me for being that guy who is making everybody laugh. Problem is, then they start to really like me and wanna hang out, and they like going to pull women, so I have to make excuse. Once I even went out and pulled three women just to make point and get them off my back. Ugh. It’s like I just snog my sisters.
So anyway, Uncle tell Professor Jojo he can stay, and I show him spare sleeping spot – I mean, it is only mattress, okay, but he look right into my eyes and say thank you… like it is biggest favour anybody done him ever in his life, and he lie down, hands behind head, with biggest smile you’ve ever seen. He start saying something about leaving jungle, with like fox and snake kissing dove or something crazy like that, ending up in city with bed to sleep on… I have like no clue what he is talking about, but he tell me it was just a poem he remember, so I applause him and tell him that has got to be first poem anyone ever said in this place, but maybe if he want to fit in with guys here he better rein it in, and also, if he want to be friends even with me, he got to shower, like right now.
He jump up and ask if shower was with hot water, like that would be impossible, and when I said yeah of course, his face lit up like he just got papers from Home Office. I say I can lend him razor and I show him bathroom. He go to look at himself in mirror, then turn to me and his face is angry. I’m thinking, What did I do? He ask if I have scissors, and I’m like, Uhhh, is he gonna stab me or what? But I get them from kitchen. He take and say thanks, then start to chop at his hair like weeds! Just chop chop chop and throwing big lumps down toilet, I mean – I was still imagining it all brushed out ready for dance floor, so I’m like, ‘Wait, please, my friend, keep some!’ But too late. He smile little bit and tell me, ‘My hair needs new start, like me.’ I tell him, ‘Okay, fine, but you can’t leave it all messed up like that. I can cut properly for you. I am cutting everybody’s hair in warehouse – I do yours for free first time. But I am not even touching your head until it’s had, like, three shampoos, okay?!’
When he came out of shower, he smell normal, and his face look so different with no beard, fresh and kind of fragile. But his body super-skinny, like bamboo stick. And his hair! There were tufts sticking out like clown, and now it’s been washed, I can see it’s not fro exactly, like looser curls, soft for touch.
So, I make him coffee in red Malteser mug and tell him to sit so I can start trimming, and we talk. Actually, it is me doing most talking at first. I try to ask him what he’s been doing, where he’s from, stuff like that, but he’s not saying much, just asking me more questions back. And I like talking, you know, so I keep going, but after some time I say to him, ‘Hey, it’s your turn now!’ But he just laugh and say oh, long story, he’s just happy he made it here, then ask more about me. And I get that. I mean, lot of guys in warehouse have shit lives before and not like to talk about past too much, especially if they don’t know you yet. So I just tell him about other guys and about work for Uncle and living in London. And for some reason I am already feeling easy with him, like, you know, he listens, and not everyone does that, right? And he’s sounding interested, he’s making jokes even… and then it just slips out. That I like guys.
I stop. I’m like, oh shit, shit shit shit, I kept that secret for so long, and now I just told to some new guy I don’t even know, who probably hates gays, or is gonna tell. I feel super-nervous, and my hands start shaking, I’m thinking I’m gonna accidentally stick scissors in his scalp. I mean, you know, he seem nice enough, but most straight African guys in warehouse don’t like gays from what I hear – but I am still hoping he will say, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gay as well!!!!’ Haha. Actually he just say ‘okay’, you know, just ‘okay!’, like it’s just one small thing about me, like my favourite colour, like he is totally cool with it. So that was big, big relief.
I ask him, look, can you do me a favour – don’t say nothing? He say no problem, he can keep secrets. Then, still looking away from me, cos I’m cutting his hair, he say his best friend from back home is like me, and he keep that secret too, because back home you can get put in prison. He tell me how that friend, Gebre, is closer to him than his own brother, how his parents basically adopted him as kid, after his father got disappeared. I’m like: ‘Disappeared?’ He explain how before independence Ethiopians would just come and take Eritreans from where they working, or living, no warning, then they never see again, no explain, nothing. He is telling me he feeling guilty now, meeting me, because he never tried to talk to his friend about it. I’m like, ‘You mean you could not talk about his father?’ And he say no – that is bad memory, but occasionally they talk about that – no, he mean he never talk to his friend about him being gay. Then he sort of burst out how he wish he could change that now, and also introduce his friend to me. I’m like, ‘Sure! Bring him right over! And I hope he looks like you!’ (I not really say that last bit.)
Then I ask him, ‘How about you, you married?’ And he shake his head, say no, but not look at me, just start talking about something different. He never ever talk to me about any wife or girlfriend, after that, even when we good friends – always keep private about that stuff. But also he don’t say nothing to other guys in warehouse about me, not whole time we living there. He is solid guy, Professor Jojo.
At first, other guys try testing him. Make him do bins and tell him he’s got to shower last in queue, all that. I’m thinking, How is he gonna deal with that, cos he’s quiet kind of guy, and mostly guys at top of pile are alpha guys, you know – maybe they push him around. But no, he stay cool, he don’t get intimidated. He even make people start to like him, just from small things, like buying pack of cookies, offering around.
So, Uncle tell me I gonna be Professor’s mentor, you know, like, person who’s gonna show him around for work and stuff. I remember first day we get on bus together, and he’s like, amazed that seats are so nice! Stroking his like he got new puppy! I’m like, okay, so today we go to bank where all guys working there sniff coke in toilets, then later we go to gym where guys pump truckloads of iron and grunt like pigs, then tomorrow we have solicitor’s company where they work all hours in clock, and PR company with brainstorming area like pre-school art room for kids who need to roll on beanbags and draw with crayons. He think I’m just being funny. Later he realize it’s all totally true.
So, I show him main sights as bus goes into City, like tower that’s named after a cucumber but looks like massive dildo, and Bank of England that looks like palace. We have fun, pointing out people wearing weird clothes, and just chatting. And he’s good to work with too. Doesn’t mess about, like me, but picks everything up fast, like I only ever have to explain one time, then he got it.
So one morning, after one week or two maybe, I remember one guy left newspaper on his seat on bus and Professor pick it up. Headline is something like ‘Rapist asylum seeker caught with pants down taking a shit on a solid gold toilet studded with diamonds that he bought for his fifty-bedroom castle in Chelsea after selling cocaine to hardworking British businessman who believed they were just buying expensive cornflour’, and he rips it out and puts in his pocket, then carries on reading. I’m like: ‘Wait, what are you doing?!’
He goes: ‘Collecting.’
I’m like: ‘Why?’
He goes: ‘This newspaper is always talking about immigrants and how dangerous they are. Like we are about to take over.’
I’m like: ‘You’re twisted, reading that.’
He just grins. He goes: ‘I just want to know how British people think of people like us. Some of them, anyway. Lots, actually. I think this is the biggest selling paper.’
I’m like: ‘So, you wanna walk around thinking how everyone hates you? I still don’t get it.’
He goes: ‘Look, some people collect stamps, I collect newspapers, okay? It’s normal!’ He’s a geek, okay, but I still not realize how much, until we find out about library.
Oh yeah, so that’s how he got name, Professor. He start bringing library books back to read. Of course, guys start laughing at him. I remember Alfonso ask him one time: ‘How come you get library pass anyway if you’re illegal?’ And he just say he has ways. We know he must be nicking books and we tell him: ‘Hey, if you wanna steal shit, why not get us drugs or alcohol or something useful? DVDs at least! Do you think you gonna win Nobel Prize from reading all these books?’ He says it’s not stealing, he’s bringing books back to library after, and he likes to read, he studied literature at university. University! Turns out he wrote big essay on newspapers in his country. Boris was first one to start calling him Professor, and it stuck – then I added Jojo, so he wouldn’t sound too smart. He used to read so much different stuff, like history books, story books, even dictionary – like, not just to learn English better, but reading meanings of words for fun. For fun! Who does that?
Oh, other thing about Professor I got to tell you is cooking. Haha, especially one meal! Okay, so normally in that warehouse, nobody cooks. Not properly. If we got enough money, we eat McDonald’s cos it’s easy and tastes good and you feel nice and full after. If we got less money, or wanna be more healthy, we eat like soup, or spaghetti hoops, or pasta and sauce or eggs on toast, that kind of shit. Basically, nobody cooks cos we’re guys, and we’re too tired from work, and all we got to cook in that place is microwave and two hotplates anyway. But when it came near to Christmas… okay, from like October – you know how in UK shop windows get stuffed way early with gifts, flashing lights, snowflakes, discount signs, and everybody is walking around with big fat shopping bags, cos all British people have credit cards – Professor read in one newspaper that average British person spend £200 on presents! What was I saying? Oh, yeah, so when it came near to Christmas, Professor ask me what we do in warehouse. Like, for celebrations. Especially for eating.
I tell him I guess we’ll do like year before: put up tinsel and some pound shop lights, then on Christmas Day get drunk and eat chips and cheese and watch TV. And then on 27th when there is discount everywhere, last year I buy frozen UK Christmas food like mince pies and turkey and eat later. But basically there’s no big meal or anything, we all eat our own stuff like normal.
But Professor say to me: ‘How about we have Christmas feast all together?’
I’m like: ‘Well, if you get the food and cook then maybe the guys will go for it!’
He goes: ‘Okay, I can try if people chip in some money.’ He tell me back in his country, only women cook, but he thinking it cannot be that hard – he seen male chefs cooking on TV and he want to learn himself now he is here. And also he say Christmas in his country is not even in December, so he wants to try British one.
I’m like: ‘What? Christmas not in December? Are you serious?’
He goes: ‘It’s Orthodox Christmas.’ Always happens on seven of January. And for dinner they eat roasted goat, and panettone, you know? – it’s like Italian bread thing that is all light and soft and taste of lemons – and bowls of popcorn, and super-strong coffee, beans roasted fresh that day.
I’m like: ‘Mmm, sounds nice! Wanna make it for me?’
And he say okay, he will try to make one of each kind of dinner, one for British Christmas and one for Eritrea Christmas, if he can get others to chip in money. I’m thinking the guys will just laugh at him, but they pretty much all up for it! They each give him, like, four quid or something.
So, on Christmas Day we all get up to eat toast for breakfast, then sit around on cushions and mattresses and get drunk, smoke, start to watch stuff on morning TV, like It’s a Wonderful Life, and some film about snowman. Professor is sitting at table, chopping parsnips and potatoes – he got extra paper plates and cutlery so we can all eat at same time, and they are towered up on table next to him, all ready, and he’s got stuffing and cranberry sauce, and we’re all thinking, Yeahhhh, feast time soon, and getting hungry, you know…
And then there’s this BANG! Like proper explosion. Like bomb. And everyone’s like, What the fuck? Is this terrorist attack? Some guys scream, and we all look around, and Professor Jojo has fallen on floor on his back, and there’s flames coming out of microwave, like, big flames! Oh my God, such a stink, of like burning plastic, and raw meat splattered everywhere like some crazy baby thrown its purée around… I grab fire blanket, and we throw on water and put out fire, then we asking if Professor is okay, and what happen? He gets up slowly and says he’s okay, but he look shocked.
So I say to him again, like: ‘What happen?’
And he goes: ‘I don’t know, I just put chicken in to cook…’
And then Histoire is like: ‘Ow long for?’
And he goes: ‘Just one hour!’
And Histoire’s like: ‘Fucking idiot, look what you ’av done,’ – all angry. But I’m thinking, oh my God – putting chicken in microwave for one hour!!! Like, of course it’s gonna explode, and maybe blow up whole building, and this guy probably never even used microwave before in his whole life, and it is kind of amazing all of us not covered in chicken guts and on fire ourselves, this is like most hilarious thing ever happen in warehouse, maybe even in my whole life, and I start laughing and laughing, like I’m crying, and other guys all start laughing too, even Histoire, and even Professor Jojo. We tell him don’t worry, we don’t need no microwave, we can live on McDonald’s for a while! And Uncle will probably buy us new one anyway if we say it broke. Plus we can still eat rest of Christmas food, like stuffing and potatoes – by some miracle most of it is not covered in raw chicken. And actually it taste not bad. We give Professor big round of applause, then eat in front of Queen doing her boring speech, then fill up on mince pies, and life seems pretty good. For a day.
So, when Eritrea Christmas come around, Professor is still gonna go ahead with cooking special meal like they have back there, but he refuse to take money from guys this time round, even though we try to give to him – I think he’s feeling bad about explosion even though it was just mistake. He fry up sausages for us, and make popcorn in a pan and strong coffee, and he keep on saying sorry it is instant coffee, but we don’t care. He stew up apples with cinnamon to serve with sausages, and we all sit together again to eat – this is second time in two weeks, and I mean, most of guys in warehouse are bastards so far as I’m concern, and I never thought I’d be sitting to eat with them – but it did feel kind of nice, almost like family, just for couple of hours. Everyone does a big ‘cheers’ with drinks for chef.
But after, when Professor is washing up, I go to help him out, and he’s kind of quiet. I ask what’s wrong, and he says nothing, just thinking about family, what they’re doing, if they’ve had Christmas meal already. I can tell he’s homesick. All of us are, even if we hate our homeland, even if we never ever wanna go back. It’s still home, you know? So anyway, I just got phone as present from sisters (Uncle banned phones in there but I had mine hidden), so I offer Professor to call home on it if he wants, so he not have to go out to phone box to speak to his sister like usual. He’s super-grateful.
So he takes it to corridor, and when I go to take rubbish out, I hear him talking. It’s not like I expected, a Happy Christmas everyone! type of conversation – he saying he promise he’ll send money soon. After, I ask if everything’s okay. He tell me things are hard for his sister, cos she could get arrested any time, because of him. I’m like, woah, you like gangsta or something? And he’s like, no, it’s just he wrote article saying everyone shouldn’t all have to do military service their whole life, and because of that, they put him in jail, and when he escaped, they came to his house and threaten his sister and took all his shit. I’m like, oh. That is bad. And then he say his sister got a little daughter and no husband, and she’s got to look after their brother who got his legs blown off, and grandmother who can’t remember what she did ten minutes ago, and they all rely on him for money cos their parents are dead, and now government is after them for extra tax money, just cos he left! He got all worked up talking about it, then suddenly he stop and ask if we can talk about something else. So we did. But I remember it, and I had proper respect for Professor after that. Like, my life was lush compared to his, but he never complain like me, he just tell me about it that one time, and then just cos I ask about it. I reckon if I was him, with all that going on, I would be in some kind of big black depression, you know, drinking vodka with Russian guys every night and crying like baby.
So anyway, yeah, few months in, we good friends, and one day I look at Professor Jojo coming out of shower, and remember day one when he’s stick thin and stinking, and I’m thinking, Wow, you got muscles now! I don’t say nothing, but I’m like: I knew you would be hot. And one night soon after that, Alfonso (who thinks he’s Leonardo DiCaprio), he take Professor out to pull women. But Professor never come back after and go on about how he got laid, even though I know the girls went mad for him, cos Udaze said. He just said it was okay, but he can’t believe how one drink in pub cost more than ten cans from supermarket, and he not get how people expect you to buy rounds for everybody, so that was last time he doing that. I told him he don’t need to meet no girls in pub anyway, right, he’s already married – to books!
Actually, one day I feel bored and I start looking into one of his books, and thinking, hmm, like maybe I need to make more effort with education, all that shit. But a few pages of English and my head hurt! So I put it down, switch on TV. I’m more, like, people kind of guy. For me life is for living.
And then I’m like: wait, but if life is for living, how am I still here in this warehouse after six months? I tell myself, okay Emil, you gonna focus now. You need get out of here and live in proper apartment or house or something, so you can come out to people you living with, like this whole London thing supposed to be about. No way you can save enough money or meet new people with this shit pay.
So, that night I take all my savings and I’m like, right this is it, I don’t have any family to support like Professor, so I’m gonna take risk: I’m gonna go to G.A.Y. – you know, like biggest gay club in town – and I’m gonna party like it’s last night on earth and meet people who got better places to live and can help make my life different, somehow. I mean, it’s big gamble, I know. But I’m like, fuck it, I’m gonna do this one big night, for me, just how I want it, this one time, and it’s gonna be amazing. So I go there, and oh my God. SO much fun. I dance like crazy, I pull a couple of guys and I go back with one of them to his flat and, wow, I’m like, life is good right now, even if it’s shit again tomorrow.
But it actually works out! So, not too long after, one of my new friends tell me he play in this band and that’s how I got to join... actually, I probably would not even be doing that if Professor Jojo hadn’t come along. Let me explain.
Back in Romania I used to play violin. Like all time when I was kid, and then I play in wedding band and earn my living for some time – it’s not much money, but I loved it. So I brought violin to UK, but I never play it. But then one day in warehouse when everyone’s out and it’s just me and Professor Jojo, he finds violin at back of big cupboard, and ask about it. I told him it’s mine but I not play any more. He ask me please to play for him, and I say no, no, but he keep pressing. And I’m like, okay, fine, so I pick it up, thinking I can just scratch some tune and put it back. But then I play this song my grandmother teach me, and it is first time touching violin since I left my country, and since I saw her – and oh my God, this feeling just hit me. I’m not expecting it, you know? And fat stupid tears just start falling out of my eyes, like river, so fast I cannot even play, and I’m like, what is wrong with me! I put violin away, and I cannot believe I’m crying in front of another guy, but Professor tell me wait, don’t stop, play more, and I tell him no, but I end up admit to him about my grandmother and how she disowned me when I came out to her, and how she die a year later, and how I feel so bad about letting her down. So bad, like maybe it was me breaking her heart and killing her, and how that was when I decide to get out of my country and come to UK.
Professor just listen. Then he tell me his mother used to sing, and he and his sister played an instrument called car or something like that, and he really miss music from home. He say, if I have violin here and I can play, I should do it, and keep my culture alive inside of me. He say my grandmother would want me to. But I tell him no no no – you know, I’m not into it any more.
But when I find out one of my new friends has got band that’s like Eastern European folk but with urban twist, it sounded cool, and I remember what Professor said, so I ask if I can try out, just jamming with them one time, and now I play with them regularly! It’s, like, music you go crazy for, and we perform wearing wigs and traditional dresses. It’s hilarious. I love it.
So, anyway it was one of my friends from the band who offer me place to live in house after the warehouse got raided – like, proper house in Brixton that look on outside like kind of house with normal family living there, except inside there’s six gays squatting. And then through another friend from that group I get proper job wrapping sandwiches for supermarket. Pay every week, better money – everything coming together. Best of all, I can stop pretending to be alpha guy – so I shave my hair at bottom and up one side, bleach the ends and get some piercing, and finally I can walk out on street and feel like me. Like the me I was supposed to be.
So anyway, I hope Professor’s not gonna get deported. How his chances looking like? And how about one more coffee? We had late gig last night.
Chapter 8: Yonas (#ulink_20936ec7-e070-55a6-bbe0-4a708c7b9a21)
MIGRANTS CLASH: FRENCH COPS USE TEAR GAS IN RUNNING BATTLES WITH HUNDREDS OF MIGRANTS TRYING TO CLAMBER ON LORRIES BOUND FOR BRITAIN
‘Brother! Is it really you?’
The sound of Melat’s voice for the first time, after so long, made Yonas’s throat swell so that he couldn’t reply straight away, and he had to lean back against the phone box wall. Part of him had been convinced that he wouldn’t get through, that something terrible would have happened, that the police would have come, she’d have been beaten, worse…
‘Hey, are you still there?’ she asked.
‘Yes, yes!’ Yonas laughed, imagining her face in the contour of his reflection in the scratched Perspex window. ‘Sorry – I was just… Never mind. So, I made it to London! How are you all? I have been so worried – they haven’t come to intimidate you again, have they?’
‘Not the police, thank God, but the tax men came, demanding their two per cent. I fended them off this time, and obviously I am still here, but they kept asking me again where you were, kept telling me I must know, I must be getting money from you… they searched your room again and took everything they didn’t take last time. Of course I told them I didn’t know anything, I insisted I wasn’t getting anything from you, and said I feared you were dead, which was true – I even showed them what we had in our kitchen cupboards, just flour for injera and lentils, but they didn’t care, and if it wasn’t for Sheshy in his wheelchair, I think they’d have arrested me. But anyway, we’re okay. Now you – where have you been all this time? Are you with Auntie?’
‘No – I was about to say. That number you gave me did not work.’
‘What?’
‘I know. Every time I tried it said number is not in use. Can you ask if she has changed phone?’
‘Oh. I don’t know – the person who gave it to me moved away. I can ask around to see if somebody else knows but…’
‘Okay, thank you but do not worry yourself too much. I have found a place to live for now. And I can send you some money soon.’
‘Thank you, brother! We are really struggling. So how was the journey?’
‘After Libya? Long story. The boat was bad but the main thing is it didn’t sink. I had to pick vegetables in Italy for a while, and then I had to pretend to be a cabbage to get to France, and we got arrested there but—’
‘Arrested? Oh no – did you go to prison again? Are they looking for you?’
‘No no, do not worry, they did not keep us for long – some guys helped us to escape – it was easy,’ he lied. ‘When they got us to UK we had to work for them for some time to pay them back, so that’s why I haven’t called. But everything is fine now.’ As a little boy, when he used to sit with Melat under the mango tree in the garden doing homework and sharing secrets, he had assumed she would always be there to confide in, to dispense big-sisterly advice. Now it felt like he was the one who had to keep things from her, to protect her.
‘Oh brother, I am so glad,’ she said.
‘Why did I have to call you at Uncle Solomon’s?’ he asked. ‘Is your phone broken?’
‘Our line is cut off – we cannot pay our bills, even though I am braiding women’s hair at our house every spare hour God sends, and mending clothes and sewing for people. And getting hardly any sleep trying to keep the house clean and cooking, caring for Sheshy and Grandmother; even with Lemlem helping me, it is hard, I am always tired… Things are really difficult here, Yonas. It is not just the tax and bills, we have no money for meat or vegetables, and I don’t know how I am going to pay for Lemlem’s school fees next term, never mind the new shoes she needs – the old ones are hurting her feet and have holes in. She knows not to complain, but she keeps asking when you can fly us all over.’
Yonas laughed bitterly. ‘I would love, more than anything, to bring all of you here, but you need to tell the little one not to get her hopes up…’
‘I know, I know,’ Melat said. The sound cut off for a minute, but then her voice returned in a whisper. ‘Listen, I’m scared, Yonas. If the tax men come again, they won’t let me off so lightly. They kept telling me you know where he is, come on, admit it, you know where he is. They had guns and they kept putting their hands on them.’
Yonas could hear her voice wavering, and he winced. He knew what could happen to deserters’ families… but orphaned families? Children whose parents had fought for liberation, who were national heroes? Whose brothers were maimed fighting in the border war? All that might as well have been for nothing now. To the authorities he was a traitor and a deserter and, thanks to him, Melat was tarred with the same brush.
‘What else did they say?’ he asked. He felt like punching the window and shattering it. ‘Did they threaten you with prison?’
‘They had guns for a reason.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Like I told you – I knew nothing. I made them come and see Sheshy, told them I was caring for a martyr.’
Yonas sighed. It could so easily have been him in a wheelchair. ‘How is he?’
‘Miserable. Only thing that makes him smile is playing chess with this friend of his who lost an arm. They play every week.’
Even after all these years it was still hard to imagine Sheshy twinless, having to make friends on his own who would accept him in a wheelchair. Instinctively, Yonas still thought of Sheshy and Tekle as a duo, a pair of cute but irritating toddlers, always together, always scheming and giggling, who pushed over his wooden block towers and tried to copy everything he did, but whom he’d have done anything to defend, even though they would always love each other more than him. ‘Can I speak to him?’ he asked.
‘He’s asleep.’
‘Oh. Well, when he wakes up, tell him… he is brave. Braver than his big brother.’
‘Right.’ Melat’s voice sounded tart, cynical, as if she were thinking: Yes, well, it’s true.
‘Now I am working, we can save up for his prosthetics, Yonas added.’
‘Okay.’
There was a long pause. ‘And how is Grandmother?’
‘Worse.’ Melat puffed out a long breath. ‘She’s gone downhill. I mean, she can barely remember who came to visit five minutes ago and she’s got so cranky and frail…’
Grandmother had been fine before Yonas left, asking him to find her glasses and forgetting what she’d just been about to do, and complaining of the odd ache and pain, that was all. She used to be a strong woman, with a steely voice, hard to deal with sometimes, but she would do anything for the family, and adored Melat. Many older women would have disowned a pregnant unmarried granddaughter, but Grandmother had lied gallantly to the whole community, making out that Melat had a fiancé who was killed in battle. And it was Grandmother who had stepped in to help when Melat went through that crazy phase, leaving her tiny baby screeching in one room, and hitting herself on the forehead in another, swearing, saying that she couldn’t look at her any more, that all she saw was him, that her life was ruined, that she wanted to throw the baby out of the window. Yonas had panicked, and tried to shout some sense into his sister, but Grandmother had kept cool, just told Melat calmly to rest, to sleep, and to let her tend to Lemlem for a while, even in the night-time. Gradually the darkness in Melat’s eyes had faded, and she even started to take delight in Lemlem’s smiles, her kamikaze crawling.
‘I wish I could help you more,’ Yonas said. ‘At least some money will come soon. Right now I’m staying with some guys and we are doing things like cleaning mostly, and the money we are earning does not get me far – you would not believe what things cost here! But I will find a better job and place to live soon, and then I can send more…’ He tried to assert this confidently, but heard his voice falter and changed the subject. ‘And what about Lemlem?’
Melat laughed finally, and it was like music. ‘Well, she’s the ray of light. Her schooling is terrible, you know, education here has dive-bombed and most of her classmates can barely read, but at least thanks to Father I know enough to teach her at home. We’re lucky to have his books. She is reading English now, all by herself, she can sit for hours…’
‘Amazing! I wish I could see her.’
‘She misses you. Oh Yonas, I can’t bear the thought of my baby getting conscripted…’
‘Melat, don’t even think about that yet – it’s more than a decade until Lemlem turns seventeen. Things will change.’
‘Mmm. I hope so. Now, tell me about Gebre,’ Melat said. ‘How is he?’
‘Oh, he made it to the UK with me… he’s doing all right, I think.’
‘You think?’
‘He isn’t with me just now – he will be joining soon.’
‘How come? From where?’
He could hear the accusation in Melat’s voice as well as surprise. He couldn’t remember his childhood before Gebre was in it, and Melat probably couldn’t either. ‘He… found different work outside London. He wanted to stay and do that for a bit longer. Look, I’m about to run out of credit, but can I just say hello to Lemlem?’ There was a pause, but he heard Melat call her name, then a fast, drumming sound.
‘Uncle Yonas!’ cried a tiny voice. ‘I can read English now so Mama says I can come and stay with you and go to school in London!’
After hanging up, Yonas stood still for a moment, imagining them all at home, how they’d be chewing over the conversation later. Would he ever get to see them again? How would he forgive himself if the tax men came and beat Melat, or sent her to prison, all because of him?
The graffiti around the phone box walls read:
Emma n Ben 4ever
Live 4 the moment
Get Out this is my urinal
He pulled out Bin Man Joe’s number and typed into the keypad. The ring trilled over and over, like a robotic bird. Just like Auntie, he was never going to answer – perhaps it was a fake number – but then:
‘Hello?’
‘Oh, hello!’ Yonas replied. ‘This is… You took me to the station.’
‘Oh, you! Well, I never…’
‘I just want to say thank you. I thought you would like to know that I found a place to live and a job.’
‘Right! Well, that’s fantastic – good on you.’
‘Also I am calling because… I need to ask you for help one more time. Not for me, but for my friend. He might find you in the same place. I want him to know that he can come to join me.’
Silence.
‘I don’t have a phone yet, but there is a shopkeeper near where I’m living, he knows how to find me, so if you can pass the address to my friend – his name is Gebre – he can find me that way. I can give it to you now, if you have a pen…’
More silence. But Yonas could still hear breathing.
‘It is only one more person’, he added, ‘and Gebre – he is a good guy. A really good guy. He is like my brother. I will be so happy if he can join me in London, and I can help him to get on his feet.’
‘All right then,’ Bin Man Joe said eventually, sounding unconvinced. ‘I’ll grab a pen. But I can’t guarantee nowt, all right? Haven’t seen any sign of any other chums of yours or nowt like that at all, so…’
From the scratchy sound over the line, he did seem to be writing down the address, but his goodbye after that was swift and gruff. Yonas couldn’t help wondering if he’d only agreed to write down the address in order to get him off the phone, and had no intention of passing on any message, or giving any more random lifts to stinking, scared, illegal men. But at least he’d tried.
He walked home, hands in his pockets, staring at the tessellating pavement slabs. Would Gebre ever leave the factory? Would Osman ever be well enough? He should report Aziz to the police, now, today, for their own good… But then, Gebre was right: there was no obvious way to do that anonymously and not get arrested. And even if he managed it, Gebre had chosen to stay there, of his own free will, so what gave Yonas the right to expose him?
As he got settled in the warehouse, and came to know the others living there, he concluded he’d been incredibly lucky that it was Emil he’d bumped into and got as his mentor. The Russian guys were grumpy alcoholics who never washed their sheets, the Ivorian and Nigerian guys boasted and bickered, the Indian guys sneered and kept to themselves. Emil loathed the warehouse as much as any of them, but he was always on the lookout for something to laugh about, like the woman in a legal office who kept a vibrator in her desk drawer tucked under a book about the morality of law, and the overweight guy leaving the gym as they were starting their clean and wolfing two chocolate bars in the space of thirty seconds, then phoning his girlfriend and saying he was just going to grab a salad after his workout and then he’d be home, and the bus driver who kept overtaking other buses as if he were a bitter Formula One reject.
Yonas was glad, though, that Emil’s joker mask had slipped on that first day, when he divulged his secret. Although he wanted it kept quiet in the warehouse, Emil genuinely seemed to anticipate a future in which he would live here openly as a gay man. And why not, if it was legal? Yonas had responded with assiduous nonchalance, as if people he’d just met came out to him all the time, while silently marvelling and wishing he could introduce Emil to Gebre straight away – but, he hoped, it wouldn’t be long until his friend arrived.
The novelty of riding on a comfortable bus soon wore off, and the freedom to choose meals became less miraculous when all Yonas could afford or be bothered with was cheap pasta interspersed with greasy McDonald’s, and when his days were defined by endless bottles of bleach and sprays and mops and dirty coffee cups and toilets and loo roll holders. He didn’t mind the tediousness of the work particularly – it beat the factory, and at least it was paid – but he minded how short a distance the money could stretch. The amount he had left over at the end of a week to wire home to Melat was pitiful, and the prospect of saving enough to pay for a place to live, with a bedroom to himself, a kitchen with more than one hotplate and a bathroom between twenty guys, and clothes that suited him better than the two clown-like outfits he’d got from the charity shop, never mind obtaining a visa, all seemed as remote as a trip to the moon. He couldn’t risk part-time work, but he kept looking out for other full-time options, asking people in small cafés or restaurants about jobs. He got mildly excited about the prospect of teaching English in the dodgy language school above a corner shop, where they didn’t seem bothered about visas, but even the few employers like that who offered him something there couldn’t pay enough for him to rent a room, eat and send any money home.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/ellen-wiles/the-invisible-crowd/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Ellen Wiles
‘A fierce, big-hearted novel.’ Joe Treasure, author of The Book of Air‘Pushes us to find our kinder selves.’ Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You‘A wonderful book.’ Maurice Wren, Chief Executive of the Refugee CouncilOne of the Guardian’s Readers’ Books of the YearLong listed for Not the Booker PrizeAwarded the Victor Turner Prize in 20182nd March 1975In Asmara, Eritrea, Yonas Kelati is born into a world of turmoil. At the same time, on the same day, Jude Munroe takes her first breath in London, England.Thirty Years LaterBlacklisted in his war-ravaged country, Yonas has no option but to flee his home. After a terrible journey, he arrives on a bleak English coast.By a twist of fate, Yonas’ asylum case lands on Jude’s desk. Opening the file, she finds a patchwork of witness statements from those who met Yonas along his journey: a lifetime the same length of hers, reduced to a few scraps of paper.Soon, Jude will stand up in court and tell Yonas’ story. How she tells it will change his life forever.Fearless, uplifting and compelling, The Invisible Crowd is a powerful debut novel about loyalty, kindness – and the brief moments which define our lives.Amazon reviewers love The Invisible Crowd:‘One of the best novels I’ve read this year.’‘I found myself absorbed from page one.’‘A delight to read while also being thought provoking and super relevant.’‘Beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant, I highly recommend it.’‘A debut novel with a huge heart.’‘The Invisible Crowd is compelling from the first page and will pull your heart kicking and screaming through the turmoil of finding a home, safety, and love.’
ELLEN WILES was born in 1981 and grew up in Reading. After doing a music degree at Oxford, she did a Master’s in Human Rights Law, and then became a barrister at a London chambers, disappearing off periodically to work, including on The Bushmen Project in Botswana and with Karenni refugees in a camp in Thailand. After scribbling fiction on the side for a while, she did a Master’s in Creative Writing, and eventually quit the law. She is the author of Saffron Shadows and Salvaged Scripts: Literary Life in Myanmar Under Censorship and in Transition (Columbia University Press, 2015), which includes interviews with Burmese writers and new literary translations. She is currently doing a PhD in Literary Anthropology, researching live literature, and directs an experimental live literature project. She lives in London with her husband and two small children.
Someone has flung rainbow pepper on the air.
The hummingbirds are migrating, each alone:
Blossomcrown, Coppery Thorntail and Flame-Rumped Sapphire.
RUTH PADEL, THE MARA CROSSING
All across the country, people said that
it wasn’t that they didn’t like immigrants.
ALI SMITH, AUTUMN
Contents
Cover (#u9748544c-d1b6-5b21-8d5c-22e2946ada28)
About the Author (#u5179639f-24d8-5127-a448-6dc8fe865a89)
Title Page (#ufba06c29-789c-544f-986f-eebd41dfb864)
Prologue (#ulink_0669471c-f5c2-5778-9672-703799d9957a)
Chapter 1: Jude (#ulink_82ee77d4-7193-56b1-b20c-6517efee3f23)
Chapter 2: Yonas (#ulink_44e7b67d-ada5-564e-8470-4c1932a63030)
Chapter 3: Joe (#ulink_4d282cea-8a43-5b1c-bec8-35ff29a2d4d8)
Chapter 4: Yonas (#ulink_97383d9e-26e4-56f7-8a4b-4e90f51af315)
Chapter 5: Quentin (#ulink_740f496e-9c7b-5dc3-aa53-3b2a10cd7079)
Chapter 6: Yonas (#ulink_3b476a7b-8db8-5e45-bf37-621ec9ea1aca)
Chapter 7: Emil (#ulink_f0dc70d7-e1eb-5830-a1d4-ae555b607ef6)
Chapter 8: Yonas (#ulink_acd70eaa-a255-5406-a45b-053dab08d63c)
Chapter 9: Jude (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10: Molly (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: Meg (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: Veata (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: Jude (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: Gavin (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: Tesfay (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: Nina (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23: Gebre (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: Clara (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: Martina (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: Jude (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Melat (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: Yonas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: Jude (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
References (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_2f748567-ce99-5595-bc43-d1694b9b9916)
We’re clinging to each other, fistfuls of flesh and bone, and battering rams are smashing over our heads leaving us stingy-eyed, breathless, a woman and her child are clinging to one of my legs each, everyone is clinging to someone or something, and I almost envy the two tiny babies slung tight to their mothers who don’t have a clue what this chaos is about, who don’t understand the enormity of this terror, because there are way too many of us piled in here, we’ve created a death trap for each other, we know this, but we need each other too, we’re all we’ve got left, and this might be the last group of faces I’ll ever see, and I’ve never seen a group of faces so petrified, and I’ve seen a lot of petrified faces, and there’s another one approaching, oh God, it’s coming, it’s coming, and we’re rising, rising up – up and up and up – and this wave is taller than the tallest cliff and my stomach clenches and our boat is vertical now and I’m clinging on with all my strength and we’re going to flip backwards and this is the end… but then we dip forward, just a little… and then we’re nearly horizontal again – we’re floating on nothingness, we’re flying – and then we SLAP down on the water, and my brain explodes through my skull and the water is roaring and children are shrieking and women are wailing and men are sobbing, and I look beyond the boat and there’s still nothing but this vast purple-grey sky bleeding into a desert of wetness you can’t drink, with a furious monster thrashing underneath the surface, waiting to devour us, and why couldn’t it have chosen a group of people who’ve had an easier life? – and now the child who’s got hold of my leg has vomited in my lap but it doesn’t matter, because we’re rising again, oh God, we’re rising, up and up and up and up…
Chapter 1: Jude (#ulink_267c6edd-5863-545a-b8af-4718a92d11e0)
WELCOME TO HEAVEN, HOW ABOUT A CUP OF TEA?
The cold facts about immigration – why so many asylum seekers head for Britain.
YK (Eritrea) v Home Office. That’s all you have so far. It’s 8 p.m. already, and you’re supposed to submit the skeleton argument tomorrow. You were all set to leave chambers at 6 p.m., for once, when your clerk phoned. You so nearly didn’t pick up, but the receiver tugged at your hand like a magnet.
‘Brief’s just come in for you, counsel’s sick – skelly’s due in the morning, papers being biked over now, all right?’ he barked.
It wasn’t really meant to be a question. But you still could have said no. You had the right to say no. You should have said no. But if you want to get decent work at the Bar you have start out as a Yes person, and as your old supervisor kept telling you, he got his breakthrough case by stepping in at the last minute. You trill your fingernails on the desk.
Back home, Alec will be listening to his final story before lights out. You’re a terrible mother! You should be the one reading him Burglar Bill. He’ll move onto books without pictures soon, and before you know it he’ll be off to uni. You should be spending this precious time cultivating his language development, guiding him through important moral lessons like if you burgle tins of beans and bedpans from people’s houses you have to give them back, or just feeling the warmth of his little body snuggled against yours… But unless you have a career you can’t even pay for the nursery fees you need so that you can have a career… oh, wait…
Anyhow, your papers will arrive any minute. You’ll do the speediest prep possible, enough to wing it, then you’ll jump on the Tube, and in half an hour you’ll be back in your kitchen, making a cup of peppermint tea, then sitting on the edge of Alec’s bed, touching your lips softly onto his apricot cheek, watching his silhouette gently rise and fall with his breath, letting yourself indulge in a moment of utter peace. And then you’ll crash. Meanwhile…
You write the initials YK in your blue notebook, italicize them, doodle some flowers around them, and fill out the acronym in your head: Yoghurty Koala. Yielding Kipper. Yesterday’s Kleenex. Your friends are probably all out having fun right now, on a night out at that new Brazilian place you had to pull out of last time because you were working, or seeing whatever the new film of the moment is… you’re so out of the loop. None of them have procreated yet, or become obsessed with a futile desire to change the world. As a result, all of them appear to have managed to achieve a sane work–life balance involving that mystical thing called down time. You wouldn’t change Alec for the world, of course. But why were you so obsessed by getting into human rights law? Why? The fees have got so low for publicly funded work that you won’t make enough from this case to cover the weekly food shop. Come on, YK. Yowling Kitten. Yachting King. Yossarian Killer.
Your clerk finally lumbers in with two large boxes and dumps them on your desk. ‘Enjoy. I’m off home,’ he says, as if you’d be thrilled. This will take hours just to skim-read. You’re tempted to throw them out of the window and jump after them – or at least just disappear from chambers for a while. You’re so drained, and all you’ve got is a Snickers for dinner, and you’re becoming a stranger to your little boy, not to mention his daddy, and right now you feel less like a human rights warrior and more like a masochist… You manage enough grace to say ‘bye’ but your clerk is already out of the door. His feet thump down the stairs, two at a time. You pull out the first file, and just after you extricate it from the box, it bursts. White sheets drift over your desk and across the floor like snow.
Max would love you to quit the Bar! He says it’s not worth the stress. If you did quit you could start your own business, like screen-printing pretty muslin cloths, that idea you had when Alec was a baby – there’s clearly a market among new mums who want to look artsy while mopping up sick – or maybe just trade barrister for barista, and get a no-stress nine to five in a hipster coffee shop. You’d probably make more money, in the short term anyway, and the pay would be regular. Or else, you and Max could shove all your stuff into storage and migrate somewhere exotic like Zanzibar, teach English, and sip coconut water as Alec splashes through turquoise waves and rides on dolphins.
You pull down a new ring binder from the cupboard, gather up the papers, stick them back in again, in order, which eats up at least fifteen minutes, then start to flick through. So, YK is a male… arrived from Eritrea a year ago… university… government job… writer… conscript… prison break… desert… boat… cabbage truck… and you share a birthday! Seriously, 2 March 1975 – what are the chances? Could he have been born at 8.20 a.m. as well? For your last birthday, Alec made his first ever card for you – a portrait of Mummy in crayon that looked like a warped tomato on stilts with spaghetti on top – and while you were blowing out the candles on Max’s home-baked chocolate and raspberry cake, YK was probably… being smuggled through France? Cakeless and cardless, at any rate.
You go through his witness statement again, more slowly, and find you’re gnawing your knuckles. This isn’t a case you should be skim-reading. The reason you wanted to do this job is because people like YK have had the worst luck thrown their way, and all they get in return for escaping to a supposed safe place is a sea of newspaper headlines branding them liars, scroungers and criminals. At a moment as crucial as a tribunal hearing they need someone who will not only expend time and effort to put their case, but will actually care: that’s you. That’s why you’re still here, when you could be reading Burglar Bill or ordering a caipirinha (probably not simultaneously). But, first things first, where is Eritrea exactly? Might be nice at least to locate it within the continent before you attempt to persuade a judge not to send someone back there.
The internet informs you that it’s a moon-shaped sliver of coastline in East Africa, with mountains inland and coral reefs along the coast. Should be lush. But apparently it’s an ‘open prison’. Ethiopia is its next-door neighbour but also its worst enemy since they split up… after a thirty-year-long war. And then another war over the border… So in 1990, when you were on a camping holiday with your parents in the Lakes, pretending you were a Swallows and Amazons character, YK was stuck behind a front line. And in 1998, when you were doing your law conversion course and trying to get your head around trusts and torts, he was being conscripted. In 2001, when you were starting pupillage in the beautiful surrounds of Temple, his government announced the end of the free press. And in 2003, when you were stressing about leaving your beautiful baby boy in nursery so you could go back to your sought-after job after your maternity leave, he was being tortured in an underground oven.
After a bit more research, you find yourself clicking into a few diaspora blogs, expecting a barrage of outrage against the government, but while you do find a lot of that, you find a lot of defenders as well. It’s like going down a rabbit hole into a world of patriotic passions, fierce emotions and vicious insults. But you’ve got to crawl out: you’re seriously pressed for time now. You need to focus on the law, the expert reports, the evidence. You unwrap your Snickers, take a large bite, and read on.
If what he says is true, YK has lived a more terrifying life than you can contemplate enduring and remaining sane. But as you read his rejection letter from the Home Office, go through his witness statement again and note down questions you want to ask, a cynical voice in your head can’t help asking: how much is he exaggerating? He claims he was imprisoned for writing articles criticizing the regime… but would he really have dared to do something that risky in a country that repressive? There’s less press freedom there than in North Korea. And then to stage a prison break near a militarized border – is that even possible? It’s ironic that the more oppressive the country, the harder it is to make any stories of resistance sound credible in a tribunal, when, if they were true, the case for asylum would be all the stronger. YK has also got zero hard evidence from Eritrea to back up what he says, which of course makes sense if he had to flee, but never helps with credibility. Also, could his journey really have been that hair-raising? And why didn’t he just seek asylum here sooner? Plus, you bet in person his English will be rubbish and he won’t remember what his solicitor put in his statement and he’ll come across as stilted and awkward and the judge will make him squirm.
You plough on, sticking Post-it notes on pages of the file and making lists. YK has got some good character witnesses, like Molly Muldoon, his English teacher, and Nina Lambourne, a friend who claims she trusts him enough to let him babysit her daughter… Doesn’t that name ring a bell? Oh, and she’s Molly’s daughter. So how come she became friends with him? Not relevant, not relevant…
Your eyelids start dragging. You yawn, check your watch. It’s late. Coffee is essential if you’re going to get through this. You get up, stretch, and walk along the deserted corridor to the kitchen.
The ceiling light sputters and flickers as the kettle crackles. You’ve pretty much planned your argument now, and bullet-pointed the facts you need to prove. But it’s funny – although you’re frazzled, it’s at moments like this that you wish your job went further, that you could know more, understand more. Sure, maybe it is a big enough challenge to take a mountain of legal documents and adapt them into a convincing account of someone’s life constructed solely from words and facts that can be evidentially proven and are appropriate to the context, and tessellate all that into a persuasive argument about legal merit. It’s a high-stakes brainteaser. But however well you solve that puzzle, and however well YK performs as a witness, at the end of the hearing he’ll still be a mystery to you. You’ll never know the truth. Truth. Well, you will have a handle on the kind of truth that the law demands – a cluster of facts weighty enough to tip the case over the balance of probabilities – but what you’d love to get a sense of is the truth of what it has felt like to be YK, Yonas Kelati, the living, breathing human being, your birthday twin. At least solicitors get to spend time with their clients, taking statements. Barristers barely get to meet them, usually. You wish you could dive inside the pages of these case files and swim around underneath the text to find out what your life would have been like if you and YK happened to have been switched at birth.
You pour out hot water, stir in two spoons of instant coffee with two heaped spoons of chocolate powder, splosh in the last of the communal milk, and sit down on the spare chair by the photocopier. After the first hot, bittersweet sip, you close your eyes. Imagine if, instead of meeting YK at the tribunal hearing, you could meet him for a coffee – not a vile mocha like the one you’ve just made, but a nice cappuccino in your local café with the comfy armchairs – and introduce yourself, not as his barrister, but just as Jude, a random British woman who happens to be exactly the same age. After some small talk you could mention that you’d be interested to know more about him and what led him here, and let him tell his story in his own words, while you probe subtly for details along the way, as any friend might do, allowing the conversation to branch and spiral beyond that square box labelled legal relevance.
Imagine if you could do the same with the other witnesses too. You could invite them each to tell you how they got to know YK, and find out what they really think of him. Yes, that part would be like when you were introduced to Max’s friends and family: you thought you had the measure of your boyfriend, but they gave you a clearer sense of who he was before you came along, and illuminated quirks of his personality. The way Max knocks on his teeth with his fist while trying to make a decision, as if he were asking his inner oracle for permission to enter? His circumspect dad does exactly the same. By the end of a marathon of chats and coffees you’d be bouncing off the walls, but you would also be able to adapt all the sterile witness statements in this ring binder into something resembling stories.
You could go further, and adapt YK’s story into a third-person narrative like the kind you normally get in an asylum judgment, but more red-blooded and visceral. You’d go way beyond that Miller v Jackson judgment you learned about at law school, where Lord Denning started off by waxing lyrical about a summertime cricket match, in order to cement his legal argument about nuisance. You’d go the whole way, turning law into literature. But how would that help YK? You could kidnap the immigration judge listed for YK’s hearing, borrow her robes and pose as her while you read out your own prose to the tribunal, and conclude triumphantly that the appeal has succeeded… Oh, except you’d have to be there to listen to the judgment, as YK’s barrister. And you’d probably end up jailed yourself.
Anyhow, you’ve finished your drink, so it’s time to stop fantasizing and get back to work. But, when you sit at your desk again, your fingers seem to get a will of their own and start typing words into an online search box: Eritrean restaurant London. Your mouse clicks on a link. The food looks pretty good – lots of big pancake-type things and curries. You imagine taking YK and your solicitor there after the hearing to celebrate your win, and inviting him to choose the dishes… It’ll probably never happen. There probably won’t be an appropriate moment to ask, and anyway he might have no interest in getting to know you, might not care at all that you share a birthday, might not want to let you into any more details about his parallel, polar-opposite life. But you can at least make it a belated New Year’s resolution to step away from Pizza Express and drag your family along to eat some authentic Eritrean food one day, if you ever get time off work, to close your eyes while chewing, to immerse yourself in the new flavour sensations on your tongue…
Chapter 2: Yonas (#ulink_aff092e6-48d1-52e8-9c70-1e03b9acc8f1)
CEREAL OFFENDERS: ASYLUM SEEKER GANG COLLECTED £24 MILLION DRUG MONEY IN SPECIAL K BOXES
It was the ninety-third morning. Yonas picked up a shrimp, tore off its head, pulled off its tail, eased away its leg-fringed shell, then tossed the shell in a bucket to the right, dropped the flesh onto the pile to the left, and grabbed another, then tore off its head, pulled off its tail, and on, and on… until his numb fingertips fumbled, and a shrimp dropped to the floor. He stopped and stared at it for a moment. Lying there. Taunting him. He felt like lying down on the floor and curling up next to it. As he finally bent to grasp it, his spine made a cracking noise and a twinge spiked across his lower back. He straightened up, tentatively, stretched his arms and felt his shoulders crunch. The others were all hunched over cockles, mussels, oysters and crabs, and he imagined the whole lot of them solidifying and being found in here one day by a bunch of archaeologists, frozen in time like statues in a derelict church, with rotting shellfish strewn around their feet.
His stomach growled, reminding him that, by some miracle, he was still alive. Before he knew it he would be free to go out to a restaurant to eat a tasty meal with a bottle of beer on the side, and even some fresh fruit afterwards if he felt like it. What he would give right now for the zingy fragrance of a mango, fresh from the garden, newly sliced, glistening gold and dripping with juice! Saliva gushed around his tongue.
He blew pointlessly on his fingers, and turned the next shrimp around in his palm, picturing the beast when it was still alive, pottering along the seabed, waving its whiskers, unaware that it was about to be scooped up and boiled. He broke the shell open and extracted the flesh. When it dried, its colour would intensify and it would shrink into a crescent bead. He could string a collection into a necklace for little Lemlem… but she wouldn’t be so little any more. It had been over a year since he’d seen her running around on those chubby legs. How great it would be to hear her voice chirping down a phone. Better still, to have her run through the door squealing Uncle Yonas!, reaching her arms out to be picked up, tossed in the air and spun around…
A sharp slap on the back of his head jarred his neck, and grey sparkles danced before his eyes. ‘Get on with it,’ Aziz barked.
Yonas felt like jumping up, kicking his stool away, chucking his entire bucket of shrimp shells over Aziz’s ugly, balding head, then roaring: You get on with it! We’re out of here!
But Gebre was hissing at him: ‘Eh! Melehaye!’ his face peeking around a mountain of scallops. ‘While you were daydreaming over there I started my fourth bucket. I’m being tipped for promotion.’ He flicked a shell into the air so it spun down and landed with a clink.
Yonas laughed, as much in surprise as at the joke. He couldn’t remember when Gebre was last in a good enough mood to banter, but then one of them had always tried to pep up the other if they were down. ‘No chance, my friend,’ he retorted. ‘You’re the donkey to my racehorse.’
‘There’s only one donkey in here,’ Gebre said, ‘and I’m talking to him.’
‘If you weren’t the donkey you’d have noticed that my shrimps are a quarter the size of your scallops so my buckets take way longer to fill. Which means I can take time out and still go faster than you.’
Gebre cackled. ‘Listen, one of your shrimps is about the size of your—’
But Aziz was approaching Gebre from behind now, and before Yonas had time to gesture a warning, his friend had been yanked around. ‘What did I tell you,’ Aziz snarled, snout to nose, then let go suddenly, so that Gebre nearly toppled. Then he looked over to Yonas. ‘Stop slacking, both of you, and get on with your fucking work,’ he said, and skulked off to his den again, mumbling something that sounded like ‘fed up with managing reprobates’. A piece of paper taped to his door stated OFFICE NO ENTER in unequivocal red marker.
Gebre’s face crumpled into its default frown, his liveliness fading as quickly as it had appeared. He absently gnawed at a well-chewed fingernail, then got back to his shelling. We have to get out of here, Yonas thought. It was crazy to have been in the UK all this time and still to have no sense of what this country was actually like.
Their arrival felt like yesterday and for ever ago. Yonas remembered so clearly when they first walked in, both of them so weak they could barely stand, but still vaguely elated at having survived, together, through everything. When he registered how dank and eerie the factory was, Yonas’s first reaction was to think he must be hallucinating, that in his fatigue he’d dreamed up some kind of ghost story set in Victorian Britain. He’d uttered a staccato laugh – but the sound had reverberated back at him, and a couple of the other workers had glanced up, confused. The place was dimly lit, with only narrow shafts of daylight struggling through boarded-up windows, and the workers wore glazed, otherworldly expressions. The ceiling was high, and charred remains of timbers were dotted along the wall where the first floor must once have been. The kitchen on the back wall consisted of a big vat perched on a tiny gas burner, like an oversized owl on a twig. The bathroom comprised two industrial sinks with a hosepipe shower, and the toilet was in a shed outside with no lock. Sharing it between nineteen other men meant it was never free when you needed it. But at least there was a toilet. Yonas thought back to those interminable days in the lorry through the Sahara, how he’d had to close off the top of his throat and breathe through his mouth so that he couldn’t smell the foul cocktail of piss and shit and vomit, and later the sickly sweet infusion of decomposing human flesh. Yes, this place might be an improvement, but that didn’t make it endurable. This was the UK, after all.
On the very first morning in the factory, when they could have slept for another twenty-four hours, they hauled themselves up, stiff as rusted robots, and Aziz put them straight to work. New crates of shellfish were delivered before dawn, and they all had to be rinsed, the bad ones discarded, the rest graded and sorted, then shelled or polished, cooked up or chilled, potted or packed, and finally re-loaded into the crates and lugged back outside for collection. Buckets and tools had to be emptied and cleaned, stray shells and seaweed fronds swept up, floors mopped. It wasn’t as if Yonas hadn’t anticipated some drudgery when he first got here – they had to pay back the smugglers after all – but he hadn’t expected to be stuck in a place this grim without any pay at all. So much for his university degree. If it weren’t for that stupid war, he might be at work right now in a warm office, with his own desk under a fan, wearing a thin, crisp shirt, writing something, coming up with new ideas… The only thing going for this place was the hope that they’d end up with papers, a ray of light that was diminishing daily. Ninety-three days…
The shrimp shells started to cut into Yonas’s scarred finger pads, and pinkish blood began seeping out. The point of a headache drilled into his skull. It was so damply cold here, he felt like mould was growing into his bones. He jiggled his feet and waggled his fingers in an attempt to get some feeling back.
A rumbling came from above: rain dancing on the roof. Drips began to splat on the floor in syncopated rhythms, and the radio crackled into ‘Billie Jean’. Yonas looked over at Gebre, trying in vain to catch his eye, hoping for a sign that he too was remembering his attempt to moonwalk all the way to school.
That evening it was Yonas’s turn to make dinner, and Aziz, with a vindictive look in his eyes, paired him up with Samuel, who never seemed to utter more than a monosyllable. Yonas surveyed the ingredients glumly. ‘Well, there’s not much oil left,’ he said, ‘so how about we boil the pasta and potatoes, put chunks of that plastic cheese on top, and steam those reject mussels?’
Samuel nodded blankly.
‘We’ll get about two runts each from that lot if we’re lucky,’ Yonas added.
Samuel just stared at the reject mussels, expressionless.
‘I’d give anything for a big, tasty lamb zigni stew with rice right now, and some herbs and spices, and vegetables – wouldn’t you?’ Yonas persisted. ‘If you could eat any other dish in the world, what would it be? Come on. Your favourite! You must have one.’
Samuel thought, long and hard, or so it appeared. Then he just shrugged.
Yonas tipped potatoes from the sack into buckets, got two nailbrushes, told Samuel to scrub one bucketful, and started on the other. Dirt clouded into the water and embedded under his fingernails. He considered his chances of supplementing the mussels with some of the scallops that were intended for customers, and glanced over at Petros who was on enforcement duty, looking bored. After a few minutes his bulbous head began to nod. Yonas trod softly over to the scallops, and reached for a handful.
‘Er, we’re not allowed those ones,’ Samuel said dozily.
Yonas only just managed to snatch his hand back before Petros sat up to see what was going on. ‘I’m going to take a leak,’ he said, and walked outside.
Once he got through the door he punched his fists at the dark and yelled, ‘GET ME OUT OF HERE’ – noiselessly, and to nobody in particular. He took a few deep breaths before going in again.
Once dinner was ready, Yonas banged the ladle on the vat lid. The others mooched over, collected plastic bowls, and held them out. He swallowed his own gloopy portion as fast as possible, as most of them did, and watched Gebre pick listlessly at his. Just before bed, he beckoned Gebre outside.
‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘Let’s cut our losses and go.’
‘What, now? In the dark?’
‘Harder for them to find us.’
‘What about our papers?’
‘We’re never getting papers – we’ve been slaving here for three months now. We must have earned enough to pay off our debts. And I feel so guilty about Melat: the police will be onto her about me and she’ll be hounded for diaspora tax, and Sheshy needs prosthetics and Lemlem needs school fees. . . I’ve got to wire them some money.’
Gebre looked away, then down at his feet. ‘I know, but Blackjack promised we’d get papers, and that must take some time.’
‘Ninety-three days?’
‘Maybe. And anyway, if we leave with nothing, and it’s too late for asylum, we’ll just get locked up then sent back. I’d rather kill myself.’
‘Hey, stop that! Look, we’ve done amazingly to make it here, but now it turns out we’re being used, we just have to keep going a bit longer, and then we can make a life for ourselves. A life where we at least get to earn money and have a bit of freedom and self-respect. Also, don’t we owe it to all the people who didn’t make it here to do something with this chance? Remember—’
‘Don’t make me.’
‘Okay, but—’
‘Aziz will kill us. He’s got a gun, Rashid said.’
‘I doubt it. He’d have waved it in our faces by now if he had. I reckon he’s just blustering. Anyway, he can hardly leave the factory with no one except Petros in charge and come on a wild goose chase for us, can he?’
‘He can call Blackjack.’
They had only met Blackjack once, when he came to do an inspection, a white guy dressed all in black, with sunglasses when there was no sun, his only decoration a fat gold watch. He had effected a miracle transformation on their boss when he stepped in the door, turning Aziz from a glowering tyrant into a smiling sycophant.
‘I bet he’s posturing too. Playing the tough guy.’
‘He scares Aziz though.’
This seemed true. ‘Still, I doubt he would waste his time sending people after us,’ Yonas said.
‘But we’ve got no money. We don’t even know where we are…’
‘We can find a way! I’m pretty sure we’re north of London, just from reading the local newspaper. And once we call Auntie, she can direct us.’
‘But if we just had our papers…’
‘Gebre, that’s not going to happen! And this place is making you more depressed by the day. You know you’re like a brother to me – I don’t want to sit here and watch you morph into a mollusc. Worse, into Samuel.’
This at least produced a flicker of a grin. ‘Two more weeks then?’
Yonas sighed. ‘Okay. If you insist. But let’s sneak out on a Friday during free time to plan a route, okay?’
Back inside he grabbed his sleeping mat, rolled it out, lay down, pulled his blanket over his head, and willed himself to go to sleep quickly to avoid Rashid’s tank-engine snore.
Drifting off, he pictured himself hand in hand with Sarama, sneaking off from the barracks, clambering up the mountain path, turning down a goat track and pushing through bushes until they reached their secret spot, where they fell on each other, where nothing else mattered, and then lay there, warm and entangled, looking up at the wide sky, azure and beautiful above the filth as if the war didn’t exist, as he stroked her hair and touched her dimpled cheeks…
He was woken by moaning in his left ear. In the dimness he saw Gebre’s head rolling from side to side, arms poker-straight, forehead crumpled. The moan grew louder, Gebre’s body jerked, and he shocked himself awake. Yonas reached out and put his hand gently on his friend’s arm in the dark. The skin was clammy. Gebre twitched, froze, then curled into a foetal position. Yonas resigned himself to wakefulness for a while. He rummaged around in the dark until he felt his little wooden rooster, extricated it from his pocket, held it lightly between his fingers, then enclosed it tight in his palm. He wondered whether underneath Rashid’s snores he could hear the sea, or whether it was only the shushing of the others’ sleeping breath.
Another drizzly morning followed, with no visible chink in the cloud. The new crates were filled with crabs, piled and twisted together. Some were dead or not far off, but many were still alive, moving their pincers feebly, waving for help. One was valiantly attempting to clamber to the top of the pile. It struggled upwards, slipped back, and climbed up again. It was as if it had already seen the vat inside. It’s too late for you, my friend, Yonas told it. The crab pawed vainly at the crate wall.
Chapter 3: Joe (#ulink_d5b635e6-382c-5586-9132-8c0107cf7d31)
ASYLUM SEEKER TRAVELS 50 MILES TO BRITAIN STRAPPED UNDER SCHOOL TRIP COACH… AND EMERGES WITH A GRIN AND THUMBS-UP
Oh go on then, I’ll have a coffee. Which type, did you say? Just normal, like, milk and two sugars. Americano? If you say so.
So, you want to know about how I met that African lad. I don’t know, that’s got to be one of the oddest things that’s ever happened to me. For starters, in that neck of the woods you don’t come across many people, you know, that colour… or anyone, like, it’s just fields and that. And he sprung me out of the blue… what-d’you-call-it… ambushed me! It were outside this old farm building down a track off Blithe Lane.
Things had been a bit fishy with that place for a while. In more ways than one. Ha! Anyway, it used to be a little arable farm, but it got a bit run-down, and I remember folks saying the farmer were in debt, and then there were a fire – that some said weren’t an accident – and then he sold the fields off. Not long after, we heard he’d passed. But he were a loner type, Bill Hardy. No one really seemed to know him personally, and apparently his son lived abroad, so I didn’t know what were going on for a while, but it seemed like the farm business had folded cos I’d pass the track on me route and the buildings down there just looked empty. But then one day I spotted some lights on, and I thought, hmm, what’s going on there then, and a couple of weeks later I got told it were back on me route. Sure enough, when I drove down, a couple of big rubbish sacks were out waiting for me, and I saw some movement in one of the windows. The sacks stank of fish, and I thought, well, this ain’t farming again is it – what are the new folks up to? I decided to mind me own business and just chucked the sacks into the truck. But a few days later, I were about to pick up some more when this bloke came out.
Now this weren’t our African lad, not yet – this one were a chunky Paki-looking bloke, and that threw me too, you know what I mean, around here! I said hello, and asked what were planned for the farm now. He looked kind of nervous, said summat about getting things set up for a new farm and retail business. And then he went: ‘It would be good for people who ask if you can say that is what we are doing,’ and held out twenty quid! Said he’d really appreciate it, and looked right in me eyes. Nowt like that happened to me before, I can tell you.
‘So… you’d sort me out like this next week and all?’ I asked.
‘Every week,’ he said. ‘I can leave money under there.’ He pointed out a lump of rock close to the rubbish sacks.
I were a bit torn then. I mean, I were pretty sure it must be summat dodgy. But the wife and me were under pressure with money and that, what with me son being expelled and me daughter dyslexic and there being no work for young’uns round here these days. Not to mention she’s a stickler for the accounts, the old lady, and so I have to give her every penny and I’m only allowed three pints a week. So an extra few quid weren’t going to do me any harm.
And it weren’t as if I knew what were going on exactly. I mean, this bloke could’ve been planning to set up summat legit soon enough. Anyway, I were only a bin man so who were really going to ask me anyway?
And he kept his word. Every week, cash were under that rock like he said. I could even get rounds in for the lads down the pub. I took to joining them earlier, got me pool skills up to scratch, and after a month or so I were king of the table for winner-stays-on for the first time ever! I saved up a bit and got meself a nice bottle of Scotch and a flask to keep me goin’ on a chilly morning on the round.
Didn’t get away with it for long though. That’s marriage for you! One day, when I got back late from the pub, Jill were waiting in the kitchen, hands on her hips, and she went: ‘What’s got into you, Joe? You never used to stay out till closing.’
‘Leave it out, will you,’ I said.
‘I hardly see you any more,’ she said, nag nag nag. ‘And you always come home smelling of whisky these days. I don’t like it and I don’t know how you’re paying for it.’
‘Aw come on, it’s just the odd nightcap, love. Don’t start naggin’ now, will you?’
Should’ve known that’d wind her up. ‘I’ll say what I like!’ she said. ‘Go on, tell me, how can you be affording whisky every night when you always used to moan about how much I let you take out of the kitty?’
‘The lads are a generous bunch,’ I said.
‘Come off it, Joe, they’re as tight as you.’
‘Well if you must know,’ I said, ‘I’ve got nifty on the pool table. Found meself on a winning streak.’
‘Oh pull the other one,’ she said. ‘I used to thrash you at pool, and I’ve got the hand–eye coordination of a… I don’t know. A penguin.’
‘Penguins don’t have hands, Jill.’
‘Exactly,’ she said, all smug.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘why don’t you join the lads at the pub tomorrow then, and see me skills for yourself?’ I wished I hadn’t said that, soon as it came out me mouth. Knowing Jill, she would and all and I’d get all nervous and fluff it up. But luckily she said she’d got better things to do.
Anyway, I’d got to the point where I’d almost forgotten there were anything unusual about that building, and it were just a normal drizzly morning when I were driving up the track and in me mirrors I saw summat moving in the bushes and then pop out – guessed it were a deer or summat – but it were that black African lad! And he jumped on the back of me truck, quick as a flash. Nearly give me the fright of me life! It were like seeing a ghost… but the opposite colour – ha! Anyway, I braked, opened the door, and looked out at him. ‘All right there?’ I asked. He got off, and I thought he might make a run for it, but he walked towards me. He were wearing worker’s overalls and they were right filthy. He were youngish, thirties I’d say, pale brown skin, tall and skinny as a rake with matted hair and a beard, and I wondered if he were one of them jihad terrorists about to hijack me or summat. But then I thought, they’re normally Arabs. And then I thought, Why would a bloke do summat like that out here to a bloke like me? He didn’t say a word at first, just stared, and I couldn’t tell if he were scared or crazy. I wondered if he’d escaped from some loony asylum or if he were illegal, one of them that are supposed to be all over the shop. So I told him I’d better be on me way.
But he burst out: ‘Wait! Please wait. Sir, I’m lost, can you please take me to the train station?’
I’d never been called sir in me life, and it were such an odd thing to hear, it made me laugh. But how could you get lost trying to get to the train station out here? And why did he jump on the back? Didn’t sound right.
‘Not on my route,’ I told him. ‘Sorry. And I’d better be going, so if you could move aside…’
‘Please,’ he said, and there were this look in his eyes, this desperation. ‘You can drop me anywhere.’
Now, normally I do like to pick up the odd hitchhiker. Used to hitch meself back in the day. But no one’d ever hitched a ride in me rubbish truck before! Most folks who walk past it hold their noses, and folks wrinkle their noses up at me when I’m in me work gear in a shop or summat – and I’m used to that now. But he didn’t seem to mind. Probably smelled himself but I’m immune to that. I could’ve told him just to get out the way again, but I remember what that were like, when people told me to move it when I really needed to get somewhere and I could see they had room. But then I thought, if I take this lad along, I might stop getting the weekly tip. But then another part of me felt bad for taking it in the first place.
So then I thought, what the heck, and told him to hop in. As we got further up the track I noticed he kept on looking in the rear-view mirror, like he were spooked. And when we got to the main road he went, ‘Thank you, you’ve saved me.’
I wished he hadn’t said that. I said it weren’t a problem. But then I couldn’t stop meself asking what country he were from.
Oh Lord, now, what were it he said? To be honest I hadn’t heard of the place. It were in Africa, close to Ethiopia, I remember that much, and I felt bad then. ‘I remember those pictures on the telly in the eighties,’ I told him. ‘Kids with bellies popping out.’ It were horrible, that famine, horrible. I hadn’t thought about it for a while. ‘Were it like that in your country?’ I asked him. He said that they used to be the same country in the eighties. News to me! Geography were never me strong suit. Well anyway, then I felt all right, like I were actually doing a good deed by giving this poor lad a lift, like I were finally doing something for all them starving kids, not just watching them on telly and donating a couple of quid to Bob Geldof and feeling pretty useless. And then he asked me if I knew London.
‘Not well,’ I told him. ‘Too hectic for me down there. I’ve got a brother who lives in the East End though. Moved there not long ago and got himself a job. Place called Canning Town. Haven’t visited him yet. Should get round to it. So – what brought you to England then?’
‘Just to live,’ he said. I guessed then he were after benefits, like they say, you know, and fair play, in a way – I mean, I suppose you would be, coming from somewhere like that. But he added: ‘And work.’
‘Oh right,’ I said. ‘What kind of work?’
‘Anything,’ he said. ‘If it pays some money. Even cleaning toilets would be good just now.’
‘Well, who knows,’ I said, ‘you might even find a bin man job, there’s worse things!’ And he laughed. ‘You go for it, lad,’ I said. ‘So, when d’you get here then?’
He took a while to answer, till I thought maybe he hadn’t heard the question. Then he said, ‘Not long ago. Actually I already started work, but I was working for a bad man.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Long flight to get here, was it?’ I asked him, to change t’subject.
He laughed. ‘I didn’t fly,’ he said. ‘First we had to walk through the desert for four days with no food. We only survived because we came across a shepherd’s water container in a valley so we could drink, and the hyenas decided not to eat us.’
I looked at him, and nearly laughed, like – you what?
‘Then, for some time we were living in a lorry, a bit like this one,’ he said. ‘But stuck inside a box on the back, with no room to sit down, and it was as hot as an oven – and the smell was worse than this.’
‘Ha!’ I laughed. ‘Come on now. Not many folk would say that about a rubbish truck smell.’
‘Maybe they haven’t smelled—’ then he stopped.
‘Smelled what?! Dead people?’ I laughed at me own joke, even though it were a bit dark, like.
But he weren’t laughing. He looked out the window. Didn’t deny it. I mean, he could have said he were just being polite about me truck or summat! I felt queasy all of a sudden. This were creepy, like. Were he saying they’d been murdered, these dead people he were travelling with? Were he the killer? Were he about to finish me off and all? Me heart started going then, nineteen to’t dozen, I tell you. Tricky thing to hijack though, a rubbish truck. I mean, you’d get spotted pretty quick, wouldn’t you? Couldn’t get up much of a speed. And this lad seemed polite, anyway, not like a killer. Maybe there weren’t actually dead people in a lorry with him – maybe he just didn’t say there weren’t. If you know what I mean.
‘We came in a boat, for the last part,’ he told me.
‘Who’s we then?’ I asked. ‘Did you come with family?’
‘With a friend,’ he said, ‘who is like my brother.’ But he didn’t tell me nowt more, and to be honest I’d heard enough. Can of worms, I’d got to thinking.
‘Well, you’re probably doing the right thing, heading to London now,’ I said, trying to sound cheery. ‘Tough to get any kind of work round here these days, so no point you hangin’ around. I’m sure you’ll settle into the Big Smoke, no worries.’
I switched on Radio 2. There were Bryan Adams on, and then Bob Dylan – ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, you know the one. And then your lad started singing along! He knew the lyrics – I mean, word for word. I had no clue they listened to that sort of thing in Africa! Thought they were more into drumming or reggae or whatever. But anyway it were quite funny – I ended up joining in, and we were there driving to town, the two of us, singing like we were a couple of mates who’d just left the pub on New Year’s Eve. And I thought: this lad is all right!
Soon enough we got to the station. ‘Here we are then,’ I said.
He were about to get out, but then he stopped and asked for me phone number. Pulled a crumpled piece of newspaper out of his pocket for me to write on.
I weren’t keen about that. I mean, I had started to warm to him a bit, but once you write stuff down and give out your details – you know? But he said he didn’t know anyone in the UK yet, and maybe we could meet again some day as he’d like to say thanks. Just so bloody polite! There were loads of reasons to say no. But then he’d come from that country with the starving kids, and he’d travelled all the way here on his tod, in some kind of grave on wheels – and the lad knew all the bloomin’ words to ‘Like a Rolling Stone’! So I scribbled it down.
As I drove off down the road I kicked meself. Not literally. But I just felt like I’d been a softie, and I started to get worried about what might happen. For all I knew he could be a criminal. I could’ve aided and abetted. But I tried to put it all out of me mind and think of it as a good deed. And that were that, for a long while anyway. The twenty-quid notes kept on coming, and I stayed king of the pool table for a month, till some young upstart came along. Assumed I’d never hear from the African lad again. And after a week or two of having strange dreams with corpses stuffed like sardines in the back of me rubbish truck, things went back to normal and I very nearly forgot all about him.
Chapter 4: Yonas (#ulink_54ff1d2d-308d-5858-9e40-79ab4db5bb5c)
MIGRANT SHAMBLES: EU ‘HAS SURRENDERED COMPLETE CONTROL OF ITS BORDERS TO PEOPLE SMUGGLERS’
On Friday morning, Yonas went outside to collect the new deliveries and jogged on the spot for a minute, trying to pump some blood back into his toes. Beyond the fence, a pinkish sky illuminated the scattering of copper and mustard leaves among the dense bushes. Some were already forming a squidgy layer on the cracked concrete. As he looked up the track, his feet itched at the prospect of getting out. Only a few hours to go before the scoping walk.
He reached out to pick up the topmost crate of scallops, and its newspaper lining caught his eye.
TORTURED ASYLUM SEEKER FRAUDULENTLY CLAIMED £21,000 IN BENEFITS WHILE EARNING £2,000 A MONTH
£21,000? That sounded like a lot! Even £2,000 sounded like a lot. Could this story be made up? But this was the UK, and newspapers here were regulated – didn’t they have a duty to present facts? Still… He tore out the headline carefully, put it in his pocket, and lugged the crate inside.
For the rest of the morning he worked faster than usual, with jiggling feet. In anticipation of the walk he thought back to his military service days, how impatiently he’d look forward to striding out of the barracks, up that long, stony path all the way up to the Eye, a hole in the rock that was big enough to sit in, to curve your spine into its shape, smoothed by the weather and the years and countless other human forms, and rest for a while, absorbing the rippling mountainscape, free for a precious moment just by rising above it all. When the wind was easterly the Eye would emit a low wail, like a giant flute.
At noon, Aziz started caterwauling his call to prayer and pulled out the frayed carpet, marking the start of free time. While he and the other Muslims prostrated themselves, everyone else sat around and played mancala games or snoozed. Yonas leaned against the wall preparing to read his saved sheets of newspaper, but Osman’s wheezy cough sounded beside him. ‘Yonas, can you help practise my English?’
‘Sure,’ he said, swallowing his irritation. ‘Take a seat. Why don’t you start from here, the bit about the football team?’
Osman stumbled along, tracing his finger at a snail’s pace underneath the words. He was a cute kid, seventeen at most, and the only other person in the factory who showed any interest in reading, in finding out more about this country they were in, anticipating more than mere survival. Meanwhile Gebre was watching a mancala game with a vacant expression. Yonas chipped in now and then to correct Osman’s pronunciation or explain a definition, and time dawdled on. But finally prayers were over, Petros went out, and Aziz retreated to his den, from where a rhythmic snore signalled the start of his nap. Yonas told Osman to carry on reading while he went to the toilet, got up and went out, nudging Gebre on his way.
As planned, Gebre followed him. ‘Okay, let’s go!’ Yonas whispered.
But Gebre shook his head. ‘I’ve been thinking – it’s too risky. If we’re going for good on Monday, let’s just figure out a route then, on the fly.’
He had a point. But Yonas wanted so badly to get beyond the fence. ‘I think we should plan,’ he said. ‘But I’ll just go solo if you don’t want to.’
He crossed the yard, clambered over the gate and started up the hill. But then he heard footsteps. He turned with a flicker of panic – but it was Gebre, after all! Yonas grinned, held up his palm for a high-five and they carried on side by side. The sun was struggling through thick swathes of cloud and the wind strengthened as they climbed. It felt so good to be moving. ‘So, we’ll get to a higher point,’ Yonas said, ‘and work out a direction, some landmarks, sketch out in our heads a rough route that seems like it’s away from main roads with foliage to hide in… We’ll travel mainly at dawn and dusk, find odd jobs, dry places to sleep, and then once we get to London—’ He stopped. Grabbed Gebre’s shoulder. Yes: footsteps again. They turned, expecting to see Petros with a snarl on his face.
‘Osman!’ Yonas laughed incredulously. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I want to come,’ the kid said. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Just for a walk. But if Aziz finds out…’
‘I don’t care.’
‘You should,’ Gebre said.
‘You can’t stop me.’ For a moment, Osman looked exactly like Yonas’s little brother Tekle, with those stubborn, pleading eyes, those puppy eyebrows.
‘Come on then!’ Yonas relented, and jabbed Gebre in the ribs. ‘Race you to the top!’ To his surprise, Gebre took off as if he’d got new batteries. Yonas pounded behind, energy streaming into his blood, laughter making him gasp for air. His feet thundered, his stiff, cold muscles came painfully to life, his arms pumped like pistons, his lungs were about to explode, his whole body was on fire, but he carried on regardless.
When they finally made it, panting, to the crest of the hill, they were struck in the face by a blast of salty wind. Blood thumped in Yonas’s temples as he let out a whoop. Gebre bent forward, hands on his knees, puffing steam into the air. Osman, wheezing, finally made it to join them. About a mile down the slope ahead, and stretching out indefinitely, was the sea.
It wasn’t bright blue or gleaming like the Red Sea, or violent and terrible like the Mediterranean. It was a soft, deep grey flecked with white foam like a scattering of goose feathers. A few birds hovered over it, frolicking in the wind, making light of its huge scale, a scale that brought back the terror… and yet, from this safe vantage point, the sight was liberating. Reaching out his arms like a champion sprinter, Yonas flung back his head and inhaled into parts of his lungs he had forgotten existed.
Gebre stood with his feet wide, hands on hips, shaking his head, a smile transforming his face. ‘It is good to be out of there,’ he said.
Yonas nodded sagely. ‘I told you so.’
‘All right, all right, you didn’t paint this view.’
‘I made this whole sea out of my saliva,’ Yonas said. ‘You should start worshipping me like I deserve.’
‘Idiot’, Gebre said, shoving him gently, then flopped down on the ground. Yonas copied, feeling almost drunk on the lightness of laughter and the weight of his body on the earth and the intense, sharp scent of damp grass.
Eventually he sat up, and leaned on his elbows. The sky to the south was blue-green, like the inside of a duck egg shell, and splashed with drifting clouds, but to the north a malevolent purple mass was forming. He closed his eyes, and let the wind pummel his cheeks. Feeling his sweat cool, he shivered, rubbed his arms and sat up straight. ‘Okay – we’re supposed to be planning a route here, and then we should head back,’ he said, and began to scan the inland horizon. There was no sign of a town; the only buildings visible were an industrial-looking complex and some clusters of houses in the distance. Yonas figured if they followed the coastline southwards for a while they would be able to get quite a long way unnoticed, before working out a way to call Auntie. Gebre was still lying down with his eyes closed and a serene look on his face. Yonas cast around for Osman. He looked behind, and either side – and then spotted him, running down the hill ahead, at full pelt towards the sea.
He grabbed Gebre’s arm. ‘Look! Osman – he’s running off!’
Gebre jerked upright, then they both scrambled to their feet. ‘Osmaaaaan!’
‘He can’t hear. But they might hear us at the factory if we yell any more. We’ll never catch him and get back on time…’
‘Donkoro. I knew something like this would happen,’ Gebre groaned. ‘We shouldn’t have let him come.’
‘Maybe he’s got the right idea,’ Yonas said. ‘Come on, let’s go too – screw it!’
‘We can’t. We agreed two weeks. And my photo’s still in there.’
‘What? The one of your parents? Why didn’t you bring it?’
‘It’s all I’ve got left. I have to get it.’
Yonas reached into his pocket and ran his finger over the crown of his wooden rooster. ‘It’s just a piece of paper,’ he protested weakly. ‘And if we go back without Osman, Aziz will go nuts…’
‘We’ll get back in time – he won’t know we left. And Osman will turn around any minute. Come on.’
Gebre set off. Osman’s figure was already just a speck on the horizon. Yonas followed.
When they slipped into the factory again, there were a few raised eyebrows among the other workers but nobody said anything. Aziz re-emerged from his nap, dinner preparation started as normal, and nobody seemed to notice anyone was missing. But then Rashid came up behind Yonas. ‘Where’s Osman?’ he whispered. Yonas mimed zipping his mouth.
It was only a few minutes before Aziz clocked his absence. ‘Osman!’ he bellowed. He looked around and turned on Rashid. ‘Where’s the boy?’ Rashid shrugged, and Aziz spat at his feet. ‘Fetch him now. I need my laundry.’
‘Sir – I think he’s on the toilet,’ Yonas improvised. ‘I’ll check and get your laundry.’ He went outside, ran around the side of the building and peered up the track. No sign. It was starting to rain. Of course Osman wasn’t coming back. Yonas felt a burn of envy. If he’d been stronger-willed, less sentimental, and said he was going to leave regardless, maybe Gebre would have followed. His friend’s photo, a small sepia one of his parents on their wedding day, was about to disintegrate anyway – it’d got all damp and bent in its ripped plastic wallet so that you could barely make out their faces. Yonas had to stop himself kicking the bins in frustration. He walked back inside. ‘The laundry is still wet,’ he said to Aziz. ‘I couldn’t see him out there.’
Aziz pursed his lips, and looked around. ‘If he is not back soon, there will be trouble. If anyone knows anything, they need to tell me. Right now.’
They all feigned concentration on their tasks.
‘Nobody?’ Aziz’s tone was cajoling. Then he slammed his hand down and roared, ‘ENOUGH. Stop what you are doing, all of you. Look at me.’
They all looked. Aziz pivoted his head like an owl, meeting every set of eyes in turn. Fatally, Rashid scratched an itch.
‘You,’ Aziz barked, and grabbed him by the hair. ‘Where – is – Osman?’
‘I don’t know. I think… he might have gone for a walk,’ Rashid croaked.
‘A walk? Where? When?’
‘Not long… I am not sure, I did not see… I know nothing.’
‘You obviously do know something, dog breath.’
Yonas nearly laughed, despite the situation; that was a new one.
‘No, not me, sir.’
‘Who is going to tell me, then?’ Aziz said, looking around.
There was no response.
‘Right, Petros. Go and hunt for him. If you do not find him in fifteen minutes I will tell Blackjack to get his men on the case.’
Petros nodded and went out, while Aziz stayed, glaring, as if he could shoot truth-forcing rays at them from his pupils.
After a while, Petros returned, shaking his head, which prompted Aziz to go into his den and make a phone call to Blackjack in such a loud, portentous voice that Yonas reckoned it was fake, but couldn’t be sure. They ate dinner in silence. Cleared up in silence. It started to rain. Yonas wondered if Osman had found a town by now, a friendly English person to talk to, a bed to sleep in. But rain was now battering the windows. He was more likely to be shivering under a tree. He’d survive though, wouldn’t he? If anyone from here deserved to, it was that kid.
But just as they were about to roll out their sleeping mats, the door squeaked open, and there he was. What are you doing? Yonas wanted to shout. Turn around, run away! But Osman stood still. His wet hair glistened and his eyes were black mirrors. It might have been a trick of light and water, but he seemed to be standing in an aura, like an icon.
‘Osman,’ Aziz said, his voice all smug, the purr of a cat dangling a mouse.
‘I… I am sorry, sir, I just wanted to have a walk, to get exercise, I got lost…’
‘You know the rules, Osman.’
‘But sir, I just went out because it was free time – I was always going to come back…’
‘Come here.’
Osman walked forward, then stopped a couple of metres in front of Aziz, looking down at his shoes. Rainwater dripped around his feet. Yonas saw Aziz’s arm tense up, ready to swing, but then he seemed to get an idea.
‘Please,’ Osman said, hopefully.
Aziz bent down to pick up a metal bucket, grasped it with both hands, and slammed it down hard, on each of Osman’s feet, so that he yelped with pain, crouched, then fell heavily.
‘That will teach you to go walking,’ Aziz said. ‘Now, you four,’ he said, pointing, ‘pick Osman up and carry him outside so he can think about what he’s done. Everyone else, stay where you are. Samuel, bring that rope. Tie up his ankles, then string them to the tree, from that fat branch.’
Yonas screwed up his eyes. Rashid had told him just the other night how Aziz and Petros had threatened to string him upside down once, because he’d demanded to know when his debt would be paid off. Yonas had seen the technique used in prison; when they did it to Abraham, another political prisoner, it made all the veins explode in his eyes and forehead, turning him into a bloodthirsty monster. More memories bubbled up. Being whipped like an ox while lugging stones in the heat; his head being pushed into a bucket of water until he saw sparkles and was sure he was drowning; and, the worst, the helicopter position…
‘I am sorry, I will never do it again, please, I am sorry,’ Osman was sobbing, even as the rope was being tied, even as his thrashing body was left to swing from the branch like a pendulum.
Aziz barked to the rest of them to get to bed, and walked implacably towards his den, as if they’d all just wish each other a pleasant good night and settle down.
‘You’re not just going to leave him there?’ Yonas said. He dumped his sleeping mat and ran towards Aziz, grabbing his arm. ‘Look at him, he’s only a kid, he’s been punished enough – you’ve probably broken all his toes!’
‘Get. Off. Me.’ Aziz snarled the words, wrenching away. Then he plunged his hand down into his shirt, fumbled awkwardly for a minute somewhere above his gut, his face reddening with the effort, until he pulled out a pistol, black and shining. So, it did exist. He lifted it slowly, and advanced a step towards Yonas. ‘You do as you’re ordered,’ he said. ‘I’m the one who decides punishments around here.’
Yonas stayed still a moment, feeling oddly calm. This was it, one way or another – there was no way back now. No way he could live any longer under this bastard’s orders. Torture was the main reason he’d fled all the way here – it wasn’t supposed to happen in the UK! And he wouldn’t take it. If Aziz didn’t shoot him first, he would be out of this place, by tomorrow morning at the latest… It occurred to him that he had never stood so close to Aziz for so long before. He took in the saggy eyelids, the tousled eyebrows, the beige, blotchy skin, the browning teeth. This was a man who was disillusioned with life, who seemed to have no family and no friends, who lived in shoddy enough dwellings here himself, and whose sole aim seemed to be to wield the little power he’d been given. Yes, he was capable of shooting. But he probably didn’t want to. None of the other workers were saying a word in Yonas’s defence, but he could feel them all, silently rooting for him. Yonas turned away from Aziz, and started to walk back towards his sleeping mat, expecting any second the sound of a gunshot, searing pain. None came. But instead he heard another strangled sob from Osman. Fury bubbled up, and he turned back to Aziz again. ‘So string me up there instead,’ he challenged in an unnaturally loud voice. He felt everyone else go still, and wondered what the hell he was doing.
Aziz looked confused for a second, then laughed snidely, took a handkerchief from his pocket and began, ostentatiously, to polish the muzzle of the pistol. ‘Since you asked so nicely, I will string you up, as well, next to Osman. . . if you say one more word. I’m giving you a chance, here. A last chance. If you’ve got any sense you’ll shut your mouth, and get to bed.’ He didn’t sound entirely convincing though – a bit like a cross parent who has just refused to tell another story but is now conceding. Yonas told himself to stand his ground a few moments longer. Aziz put the handkerchief away, and then, remarkably, his shoulders seemed to sag as he tucked the gun back into its pouch and looked away. ‘Right, Petros,’ Aziz said, ‘give the kid five more minutes, then if he apologizes – like he means it – he can come down.’ With that, he went into his den and slammed the door.
A couple of the others came over and patted Yonas on the back, but he was still seething at their collective gutlessness. ‘Come on, Petros,’ he said, ‘make it a quick five minutes’, and was met by an unsurprising glare. But about two minutes later, Petros summoned a few of them outside to support Osman’s body while he cut the rope, then slouched off.
They carried Osman inside, laid him down gently on his mat and gathered around. He seemed to be unconscious. Was he dead? His eyes were bright red, devilish, his face greyish-purple and blotchy, his skin cold to the touch. Salim grabbed his wrist, held an ear to his chest. ‘Yes – he’s got a pulse!’ he said. ‘Osman?’
But Osman didn’t utter a sound. They all began tenderly stripping him, and putting on dry clothes. His feet were swollen and bloodied, and a couple of his toes pointed in odd directions. Yonas reached out to try to straighten them, which must have been agony, but Osman barely reacted. After a few minutes he coughed, as if he were coming to, but he still didn’t seem to be hearing anything they were saying, just closed his freakish eyes and groaned a little.
‘You will be okay,’ Yonas told him. ‘A friend of mine came through the same thing.’ Tenderly, they wrapped him in blankets.
‘We can keep an eye on him during the night,’ Yonas offered, and he and Gebre put their mats down either side of him, and lay down, both facing him, like anxious new parents caring for a baby. Yonas began humming a lullaby his mother used to sing. It didn’t seem to have any effect on Osman, but made Yonas feel a bit calmer. Gradually, the skin of Osman’s palms warmed, and eventually he took a long breath, like a sigh, that turned into a husky, open-mouthed semi-snore.
A while later, when it sounded like most of the others were asleep, Yonas leaned across and whispered, ‘Gebre, that was the last straw. We’re out of here, tomorrow morning. I’ve got an idea. Involving rubbish. It might be genius. You just need to follow me outside when I say, okay?’
Gebre was silent. He wasn’t asleep though – Yonas could see his eyes glinting in the moonlight.
Chapter 5: Quentin (#ulink_1b9b2914-2fba-5da2-9006-b078da537427)
BARE-FACED CHEEK: FURY AS GERMAN NUDISTS ARE ORDERED TO COVER UP AFTER A MIGRANT SHELTER ARRIVES NEAR THEIR LAKE
Long black, please, extra shot, extra hot, no sugar.
So, this Mr Kelati of yours. Well. I wouldn’t say I know him exactly, but what I do know is that he managed to sneak into this country and turn my life into a train wreck. Talking of trains, that’s where I first came across him, joyriding – though he didn’t exactly look joyous. Look, I’m sure he’s had a tough time of it. I don’t doubt that. But so do thousands of others. My point is that asylum seekers should go through the proper processes if they want to live here, not sneak in illegally and then use public transport without paying and work tax-free and do God knows what else. Otherwise we can’t know who genuinely deserves protection under the Refugee Convention. Which is very unfair to all the genuine refugees. As well as to British people. That’s my opinion. I know, I know: you don’t want my opinion, you want the story.
So, I was with my campaign manager, Alice, en route back to London from Grimsby, where I was Conservative candidate. It was a while before D-day, but you need to start canvassing early: a fact Nina, my wife, struggled to understand. I know it’s not easy looking after a child by yourself, but I would usually only go off for a few days at a time, which lots of mothers manage fine, and Nina is as capable as anyone – except her anxiety was taking her totally off piste. She’d started claiming she couldn’t cope and I didn’t care enough and I was never around and our abysmal parenting was going to ruin Clara’s life. Which was baloney, but she wouldn’t listen. I told her we could pay for some extra childcare if we had to, and she should try going back to her CBT therapist, but she bit my head off. I said she should at least spend more time on her painting, which she says is her best therapy; the problem is she gets herself into a catch-22 situation whereby she needs to go to the studio but is too stressed out to leave the house, and blames it on housework and childcare, even on the days Clara is in nursery.
I’ve always tried to be patient, but it’s hard if you’re constantly being deluged with someone else’s worries or pestered for reassurance or blamed, especially when you’ve got a lot going on yourself. Not to mention the fact that, after I accepted the candidacy, Nina decided she actively disliked all party politics and refused to speak about my work at home. Point-blank! So I was expected to gag myself against any mention of the work I was doing at the most important point in my entire career, but constantly tell Nina not to worry about ridiculous things in a patient voice that implied she wasn’t in fact being ridiculous? It didn’t exactly motivate me to rush back home when I had a constituency to convince, put it that way.
But I digress. That day, Alice and I were on our way back to London, as I say, and I had a vile hangover, but Alice had scheduled a review discussion en route. So I bought myself a long black at the station, and once we were on the train I pulled out my notebook. We talked about how the trip had gone, how the campaign had progressed, what had worked well or less well, and how we might adapt our approach, and, inevitably, we got onto immigration.
It had never been a policy priority for me personally before, not really, but this phase of the campaign had made me realize I just had to take it seriously and focus on it if I wanted to engage the constituents. It was a huge deal for them. Their biggest worry. People were already concerned about all the Eastern Europeans in the mix offering labour for peanuts, and what with illegal immigration stepping up too and asylum seekers swarming in, they felt like they were being invaded. And I needed to up the ante – my UKIP counterpart was wielding all kinds of extreme language, and he was becoming far more popular than anyone had predicted.
Alice and I had always seen eye to eye on pretty much everything. But that morning she said that, in her view, a lot of the headlines I was regularly quoting were more media hype than fact and I should ‘maybe chill out a bit’. I told her she risked being naïve, and while I appreciated her playing devil’s advocate, I ultimately needed her to endorse the approach I was taking, and in fact strengthen it, and that what I was saying was actually more considered and moderate than it necessarily needed to be to make the point. Basically, genuine refugees are fine, but illegal immigration and bogus asylum seekers are major problems that have got to be tackled. She apologized then, and stroked my knee, which I quickly moved away, beginning to be irritated. (Alice is an unusually tactile person, but I’d told her several times before that physical contact like that between us in public was inappropriate. She’s not at all unattractive, so I knew people would jump to conclusions.) I took a break and made my way along the corridor to find a Gents.
I admit I did then start to wonder whether Alice was partly right, and whether I could moderate my tone a bit, if not my fundamental stance. I mean, the evidence of the impact of illegal immigration wasn’t yet clear – how could it be, if these people are under the radar? – though the constituents were convinced. But I had to take a line. Voters like a strong line. I just wished Nina would let me run this kind of issue by her. I’ve always been open to talking about her work, about the arts scene, all that. My head was pounding, and I was reprimanding myself for letting Alice persuade me into that last bottle of wine the night before, wishing I’d got the evening train home so I could have read Clara a bedtime story and played a bit of piano – and that was when I saw him. Your Mr Kelati. Standing in the toilet doorway talking with the conductor.
It didn’t look friendly, so I intuited pretty quickly what was going on. I took a few steps closer to try to hear what they were saying; having just come from that conversation with Alice I was particularly intrigued to see someone like him in the flesh, caught in the act. He looked like a tramp, quite frankly, smelled like one too, and had a heavy African accent. As I was trying to overhear, it occurred to me to snap a photo of the two of them, thinking I might blog about it as part of the public conversation. I still couldn’t quite make out the words, but then I saw him wince and clutch his stomach, which looked entirely fake to me, and I managed to capture it in another shot, but the conductor seemed to be developing a sympathetic look on his face. And then, to my disbelief, he patted the guy on the shoulder and began to turn away, with no ticket or anything being handed over! So I snapped once more, then cleared my throat and said, ‘Excuse me, but as a paying customer I’d like to check that appropriate action is being taken if people are travelling without tickets.’
‘Well, I’ve dealt with it appropriately,’ the conductor said, rather abruptly. ‘So please go ahead and enjoy your journey.’
‘But I didn’t see a ticket,’ I persisted, and then asked the guy to show me his ticket. My head was exploding and I thought there was a good chance I might be physically sick, but I also felt that I was now engaging in a tiny act of heroism on behalf of the constituents that I could tell Alice about.
Anyway, the conductor obviously felt his pride was at stake. He said, ‘Hang on – what right have you got to make demands? Are you police?’
I contemplated pretending I was for a second. ‘I’m the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Great Grimsby, and I’m asking this as a representative of people who are deeply concerned about illegal migration and its consequences,’ was what I said. I expect I sounded deeply pompous but it was true.
He rolled his eyes and told me to ‘drop it’.
‘Excuse me?’ I said. ‘I’m perfectly free to ask a question if I want, like any other conscientious citizen. But if you’re unable or unwilling to answer me, I’ve got a photo of your exchange—’
‘Oh, do what you like with your photo,’ he said, and proceeded to call me the f word, before shoving past me into the next carriage to check more tickets! Unbelievable. When I turned to your guy, he was gone too. of course he was.
At least the loo became free eventually. I locked the door behind me and sat on the lid, looking at the photo I’d taken, zooming into the guy’s face, then out, and wondering how best to encapsulate what I wanted to say about the incident on my blog without sounding too sensational. It’s a lot of pressure on a candidate, in this day and age, being expected to blog all the time, and make sure you say the right things in the right words. I wasn’t being an arse by publishing his photo, was I? No, I thought – this was exactly my point about the difference between illegal scammers and genuine refugees that I had been trying to make, and a photo can say a thousand words. So I went for: Came across this illegal immigrant on the train without a ticket today. It brought home voters’ rightful concern about the rising influx. That was about as measured but proactive, clear and firm as I could make it. Then I realized that wording might make me sound as if I hadn’t already been on the case, so I changed brought home to reminded me of.
If I hadn’t looked at the photo and thought about the exchange at such length so I could write about it, I would never have recognized the guy the next time I saw him. I didn’t spot him when we changed trains, and it’s frankly bizarre that I came across him again at all, never mind in my mother-in-law’s kitchen! I haven’t even got to that bit yet.
In hindsight I do feel like a bit of a numpty about that whole encounter, which was probably tied up with my elephantine hangover, and election stress, and my discomfort over Alice boundaries – which I should have nipped straight in the bud – and with Nina censoring me at home. If only I’d just stayed back, watched from a distance and called 999, I could’ve got the police to anticipate him in London at the station and they could have investigated properly. I can tell from your expression that you think that’s vindictive. But remember, other passengers had paid, and this guy was travelling illegally. Likewise, he could just have claimed asylum when he got here, but he chose not to. And his illegality didn’t stop there, did it? But anyway, I bungled it, so he continued on his merry way.
Chapter 6: Yonas (#ulink_b7bb08db-4b38-5aca-90e1-d70785d7ddc1)
RAPIST ASYLUM SEEKER WHO DUMPED VICTIM ON RUBBISH TIP IS RELEASED AFTER BEING TWO HOURS AWAY FROM DEPORTATION
The toilet door snapped shut and Yonas let out a long breath. The space was tiny, but for a train toilet it was amazingly clean. It barely even smelled of toilet. He looked cautiously into the tiny mirror above the sink – then jerked away. Surely that bearded scarecrow wasn’t really him. He splashed his face, reached for the snail of toilet roll, dabbed a soft wad of it against his cheeks, stuffed some in his pocket for later, then sat down on the toilet lid to think. He failed to stop himself replaying Osman’s ruby-red eyes, those crooked toes…
Slowly and smoothly, so that he could barely feel it, the train moved off. The glass of the little window was clouded. Yonas managed to shove it open an inch, then leaned onto the edge of the sink and stared out of the gap at the receding station. Rows of neat houses passed by, more and more quickly, before all the buildings petered out, giving way to rolling green fields and low, misty skies, leaving Osman and Gebre behind.
Yonas dropped his head to his knees and groaned. What was Gebre thinking, staying on? They’d gone through so much together to get to this country. Why did it have to end with an argument?
‘Okay, we need to leave in five,’ Yonas had whispered. ‘Ready?’
Gebre had followed him silently outside. ‘I don’t know what your genius plan is,’ he said when they were round the corner, ‘but we can’t leave Osman. He’s still not speaking and he can’t walk – it’s our fault.’
‘It’s not our fault!’
‘It kind of is. We can’t abandon him.’
‘He’s in a bad way, but he’ll recover – Abraham did, remember? And if we get out of here we have a chance to rescue him; we can report Aziz, and that way Osman might be taken to hospital, or a safe home of some kind – he’s only a kid, they’ll go easy on him.’
‘So how would we report Aziz, then? By turning ourselves in?’
‘There must be a way.’
‘Osman wanted to come with us.’
‘Well, he can’t now,’ Yonas found himself snapping. ‘Look, the others are taking care of him, and Aziz will leave him alone after this. Plus, if we leave it’ll teach the bastard that torture doesn’t work.’
‘It could make him do it more. To the others.’
‘Well then, the same could apply to us. We need to survive, Gebre. I have to earn some money to send to Melat… Look, here’s the plan – we hitch a ride on the rubbish truck. If it works we’ll be miles away in minutes. And it’s about to arrive – have you got your photo?’
‘We can’t get on a rubbish truck in daylight! The driver will see us.’
‘He might not. We’ve done much riskier things. Gebre, I cannot stay one day longer with that monster. And we don’t have to – we’re not in prison any more.’
‘Well, I don’t like it either, but I’m not going to run off now and get into more trouble just because you’ve suddenly decided it’s time. I’m done with your reckless plans – if it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have got ourselves into prison in the first place.’
‘But… Gebre, it was a joint project! We had to tell the world…’
‘No, you came up with the idea, and I followed, like always. Well, not any more.’
‘But we got all the way here, didn’t we? Come on, the rubbish truck will be here any second! We’re not seriously going to split now?’
‘If you won’t wait, then go. I’ve always dragged you down anyway.’
‘No…’
But Gebre had already turned his back and walked inside. Yonas wanted to yell at him to come back, but that would alert Aziz, and he could already hear the rumble coming down the track.
Bang bang bang. Yonas jerked up straight. The handle of the train toilet door rattled, and then… nothing. After a few seconds, he relaxed a little and listened to the gentle chunters and rumbles of the train as it grunted towards his new life. So, he and Gebre were apart. For a while. But Gebre would follow soon. It would be easy enough for them to find each other – he had memorized Auntie’s number too. And maybe he would bring Osman along, fully recovered, and Yonas and Auntie could help them both get settled. In the meantime, there was no point regretting the decision to go. The deed was done and it was just too painful to dwell on separation from Gebre, just as it was on leaving Melat, leaving Eritrea – he had to focus on the now, on the near future, on survival practicalities. Top priority: getting off the train without getting caught, and then getting some coins together to phone Auntie. From her house he would be able to phone Melat, tell her he’d made it, and find out how they were all doing. He might even get time to tell her a bit about what England was like, about these scenes out of the train window, rolling velvety hills, plump clumps of trees, cotton-wool sheep swimming in verdant grass…
But she would ask after Gebre. What would he say? She was a bit like a big sister to him too, ever since his father was disappeared all those years ago. The train shuddered past an old church spire, a farm, some glossy black cows, a sports car whizzing along a perfectly tarmacked road…
Yonas wished he could tell Gebre how simple it had been to escape after all. More than that – when ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ came on the radio, while he sat there in the truck next to Bin Man Joe, as if he were getting a lift from an old friend, it had felt like fate, like it was meant to happen exactly that way, almost like his father was sitting in the back, singing along out of tune, getting ready to tell his son for the hundredth time how, when he was studying in America, every student knew the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s songs, because they meant freedom… If only he could tell his father that he’d finally made it to the UK! Even fifteen years on, he couldn’t shake the ridiculous idea in the back of his mind that his parents might both reappear one day, open a door when he least expected it, laughing as if they had been playing an attenuated game of hide and seek all this time. He leaned his forehead against the window and felt it judder, bouncing his brain around in his skull, and it took him back to that trip on the steam train to the beach at Massawa with his family when he was little, how he’d craned out of the window in awe at the rugged brown mountains and the dazzling sapphire skein of the Red Sea…
This train will shortly be arriving at Doncaster. Change here for trains to London King’s Cross.
Yonas leapt up from the toilet seat and stood, poised for a swift exit. When the train shuddered to a halt, he unlocked the toilet door, slipped out and stepped off. He walked to the opposite platform and stood against a wall, making sure nobody had seen him, before figuring out which platform the next London train was going from, then went to wait at the far end of it, behind a pillar. The next train to arrive – on – platform – three…
He got on last, beelined for another toilet and took possession, felt himself breathe again. He sat on the loo, propped his arms on the edge of the sink unit and cradled his heavy forehead, allowing it to roll gently from side to side.
It was a strange moment when Bin Man Joe drove off, leaving him outside the station alone. He’d felt naked and vulnerable and, for the first time, black. Literally everyone walking past him was white, luminously pale – a procession of ghosts. He became conscious that he was wearing his dirty overalls still, while the men all wore smart jeans or branded trainers, Nike, Adidas, Reebok… And the girls! Yonas hadn’t seen a female human being for months. He watched a couple of slick-haired teenage girls go by arm in arm, cheeping with giggles, their jeans clinging so tightly that they showed every curve, and he imagined Sarama outshining all of them in her baggy camouflage.
Bang b-bang bang. Bang bang.
Yonas jerked awake. More knocks, louder. He rubbed his eyes.
Bang bang bang bang.
This person was persistent. Yonas flushed. He needed to pee now, after sitting on the toilet for hours without lifting the lid. He decided he would try. This was the purpose of a toilet, after all.
Bang bang bang bang bang.
‘Just a minute.’ His bladder was bursting but nothing would come out – he was too panicked. He zipped up, cleared his throat and unlocked the door.
‘Ticket, please, sir.’ An official-looking man was standing in the corridor with a small machine in his hands, and a blonde woman with a child were behind him, staring.
Yonas swallowed. ‘But, I already…’
‘You’ve been in here for a while now, sir.’
Yonas’s kneecaps turned to goo. ‘I just came in,’ he said.
‘No you didn’t!’ the woman shrilled. ‘We’ve been waiting ages! My little girl here needs a wee. Come on, Evie.’ She shoved her child ahead of her, past Yonas, followed her into the toilet and locked the door to his sanctuary.
Yonas gulped. ‘I have a stomach problem,’ he improvised, then grimaced and clutched his belly, leaning over as if in agony, thinking of his ballooning bladder. He did feel pretty ill right now – though that was probably the terror.
‘I still need your ticket, sir,’ the conductor said flatly.
Yonas straightened up, trying to think fast. Behind the conductor, he noticed a smart man in a suit, with blond hair and glasses, who seemed to be watching disapprovingly. He felt inside his empty pockets, as if he were about to find a crisp orange train ticket in there, and squeezed his little wooden rooster so hard the beak almost pierced his skin. Then he looked up at the conductor again, into those pale hazel eyes, trying to connect, to convey wordlessly how badly he needed his help. ‘Sir, I do not know where the ticket has gone,’ he said quietly. ‘I must have dropped it. I am sorry – I am not myself today. I have just heard that… my brother and my parents have been killed.’
The conductor’s face warped into an expression that was both sceptical and slightly aghast. Yonas imagined his own face in it, like a mirror, the moment when he first heard that news. It was so vivid still, that day, back in the revolutionary school – he was preparing to put on his first play, setting up the tarpaulin stage under an acacia tree, with Gebre’s set painted onto old sheets, hardly able to contain his excitement about the moment when the actors stepped in front of the audience… when they were interrupted. Yonas and Melat. Come with me. The commander. What had they done wrong? I have bad news for you. There was a surprise attack today, by enemy MiGs. Your parents and brothers were hit… The assault of those words, their cold, factual finality. . .
A hand was patting his back. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that, mate,’ the conductor said, his voice softer than before. ‘But I do still need to check your ticket. You sure you’ve lost it?’
Yonas jabbed his fingers in his pockets once more. But the conductor squeezed his arm.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Look, just make sure you hold onto it next time, okay?’
Yonas looked up at him, astounded, but just nodded mutely.
And then he heard a series of clicks, camera-like. Behind the conductor, that blond man was holding something in the air. Yonas tensed. Who was he? Why would he be taking pictures? Was he plainclothes police? Immigration? There was nowhere to run…
Sure enough, the man approached the conductor and asked if this passenger was travelling with a valid ticket. Yonas bit the insides of his cheeks. But then, bizarrely, the conductor told the man to back off and mind his own business. This seemed to anger the blond man who then claimed he was a politician. As the two men locked horns, Yonas saw his chance to slip away.
Down in the furthest carriage, the toilet was occupied, so he slouched down into a seat, so the top of his head couldn’t be seen from behind. He realized he was rubbing his scarred fingertips together: a tic he’d developed since they were burned, as if he could magic the sensitivity back. Across the aisle an elderly lady was looking at him sideways, but when she saw him turn to her, she immediately pretended to return to reading her newspaper. She was wearing pristine pointed leather shoes and her hair was set in immaculate ringlets, like a wig, so white it was almost purple. Maybe it was actually a very pale purple. The headline on her newspaper read:
SMUGGLING GANGS WANT TO SNEAK CALAIS MIGRANTS INTO BRITAIN TO COMMIT CRIMES HERE
Yonas turned to look out of the window. Unseeing, he clasped his hands, felt the sharpness of his nails digging into his knuckles. He wondered how many smuggled migrants like him there were in the UK right now. And where were they all? How many of them had claimed asylum? He supposed he’d meet some more when he got to London. He wished he didn’t have to find his way all on his own. He already missed Gebre like a limb.
At King’s Cross Station, announcements boomed from the tannoy like a robotic priest’s pronouncements across the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people on the concourse. Yonas weaved slowly through them, thinking how strange it was to be surrounded by so much energetic life. White faces might even be a minority here, he was pleased to note. There were lots of other black and African faces around, and also Chinese faces, Indian faces, Hispanic faces and faces with features he couldn’t place, so he didn’t feel like he stood out too much. But he did seem to be the only person in the entire station who wasn’t attempting to rush for a train, or staring with an anxious frown up at the departure board.
He leaned against a pillar in front of a coffee shop, closed his eyes to inhale the scent, and was right back in the Asmara house, walking down the stairs and towards the intoxicating aroma of roasting coffee beans emanating from the kitchen, mingled with incense and song. His mother, by the stove, her voice filling the room, wearing her favourite outfit, the burnt-orange wrap skirt and blouse resplendent with palm leaf patterns.
He looked inside, and watched the baristas standing at sleek chrome machines, bashing coffee grounds out of a filter gadget, refilling, locking the gadget into the machine and putting blue paper cups underneath to catch ebony streams of espresso. A perfect-looking concoction in seconds. He thought of how long it took his mother and Melat to make coffee, the traditional way: how they would measure out the bright green beans, pour them into a menkeshkesh, roast them until they were dark brown, grind them with a pestle and mortar, pour them into a jebena, heat and fan it on the stove, boil the liquid several times, filter it through date fibres… Melat loathed the ritual, but their mother insisted on it whenever guests were invited over. The rest of the time they all used a metal Italian espresso maker that his grandfather had acquired when it was left behind by the colonizers. Yonas and Melat both liked the coffee that came out of that just as well: sacrilege, according to their mother and grandmother. It was so long now since he’d had any kind of coffee. He watched the customers process out of the shop, blue paper cups of deliciousness carried unthinkingly in their hands.
A couple of sleek-haired ladies in high heels clip-clopped past, and the blonde one glanced at Yonas and wrinkled her nose. A targeted wrinkle. A clear message. He looked down at his overalls and tilted his head down to sniff his armpit discreetly. Bad. Of course it was bad. It was just hard to tell quite how repellent you were to others when you had got used to your own smell. Not just body odour – he probably reeked of fish guts as well. The thought prompted him to scan around for Aziz or Blackjack… but why would they be here? They were just small-time con artists. They’d never actually come after him, just as he’d told Gebre.
Outside the station, a road heaved with revving cars and grand, grumbling red buses, black taxis as glossy as aubergines and intent cyclists with helmets on, zipping through tiny gaps. It was all so loud, so intense… Yonas felt the sharp edge between pleasurable anonymity and terrifying loneliness. But he had to focus on the task at hand: to source some coins and call Auntie. He wondered whether she lived far from here, what she would look like, what she would be like, whether she would be as smiling and maternal as he imagined, whether she would be able to offer him a floor to sleep on, even just for a few nights. Surely she would be generous enough for that – she’d known his mother well, according to Melat. But even Melat had never actually met this Auntie. She had just read out her number to him over that crackly line. He’d written it onto the back of his hand, repeated it aloud over and over, and then he and Gebre had spent the next few evenings testing each other on it.
He went up to a couple of people, asking them if they had a coin for him to make a local phone call, but they just shook their heads and said ‘sorry’, as if the thing they were really sorry about was that their walk had been interrupted. He gave up, and walked slowly around, scanning the ground for dropped change, wondering if he would have to ask somebody to borrow their mobile phone or sit down and cup his hands, until, behind a kiosk selling newspapers and sweets, he spotted a silver glint. He squatted down. It was a small, angular, silver coin – twenty pence! He brushed off the dirt, examined the image of the Queen, who looked surprisingly pretty and young, and then looked around for a phone box.
When he found one, he was so anxious to get the coin in the slot that it sprang out and bounced on the floor, nearly rolling out of the booth. He rescued it, put it in with more care, and dialled the number. Auntie, it is me, Yonas! I am here! How do I find you? A quiet stuttering on the line, as he waited for the ring, but instead there sounded three notes rising in pitch, then again, then again. ‘This number is not recognized,’ a curt woman’s voice informed him. He must have mistyped. He tried again, more carefully, concentrating on every button. The same three notes. ‘This number is not recognized…’ He let it repeat a few times, then dropped the receiver so it hung from its cable, groaned low and long, and sank down to his knees on the grubby floor. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them, and fixated on the abandoned Coke can and globs of old chewing gum stuck in the corner. Had he memorized Auntie’s number wrongly? Surely not – he’d checked, and repeated it, so many times. Had he written it down wrong? Again, impossible – the line was crackly, but he’d had Melat repeat it twice. So had she been given the wrong number? Or had Auntie left the place where she was living? He would have to ask Melat when he had enough money for a long-distance call. If only he had an address for Auntie. What was he supposed to do now?
He stood up, pocketed the coin, and looked out at all the people passing by, each intent on a mission to get from A to B, to meet friends, family, to do business. If only he had someone to seek out in London, just one face that would light up in recognition and welcome and congratulate him for making it. But he had to deal with the situation he was in. The sensible thing would be to focus on finding some random Eritreans who could help him find a foothold. He’d heard that a couple of old army friends from back home were in the UK, but he had no idea where, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to see them anyway. Amanuel, that distant cousin he’d met once, was supposed to be in Scotland…
Scanning the crowds for an approachable face, he spotted a woman who looked like she just might be Eritrean, with a curly cloud of black hair tied up. He remembered Melat styling hers just like that once.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘can I ask where you are from?’
‘Er, London,’ the woman said, looking faintly disgusted.
‘Oh right. I thought—’
‘Sorry, I’m running late.’
Yonas leaned against a wall. If he did spot an Eritrean who had time to talk to him, would he actually want to join an Eritrean diaspora community? He would inevitably be drawn into ferocious debates about the President and the current situation, and he’d be expected to go to church, and they’d quiz him on his past and he’d have to churn up experiences he didn’t want to share, not yet, maybe not ever, if he was going to keep going and stay positive. What he really wanted was a fresh start in this city, to make new friends here, British friends, generous people like Bin Man Joe who liked singing along to Bob Dylan, who didn’t have a clue about Eritrea and didn’t even want to know what side he was on, who could help him reinvent himself and show him the best way to live well in the UK and feel like a native. But what would his strategy be for doing that, and for finding work and a place to sleep? He couldn’t just linger here. He decided to walk while he thought, absorb the scenery, and keep an eye open for opportunities. Something would occur to him.
He picked up his bag, then strode out along the street. Caught up in the flow of people, like a leaf coasting along the surface of a river, he felt a surge of excitement. He was finally here, in London – and he was free! Freer than he’d ever been, without any commitments, tasks or other people to be responsible for – except Melat and the family back home, of course. His feet were pressing on London’s pavements, his eyes feasting on London’s oversized office blocks and London’s shiny shops, his ears were filling with the vibrations of London’s traffic, his mouth and lungs saturated by London’s bitter air, and he was now one of the masses of London people, who were all so different, not just racially, but in how they dressed: he had expected reams of smart suits, but there was a woman with a purple coat and a rucksack covered in spikes, and there was an Asian girl with a red streak in her hair and a tattoo sprawling down her neck, and there was a man with a thick, black, rectangular beard and skintight jeans that made him look top-heavy.
He noticed that there seemed to be an unwritten agreement to avoid smiles, or any kind of eye contact with other pedestrians except when absolutely necessary. Was it just his stinky self? But no – even when people stepped aside to let others pass, he noticed, they never seemed to look at each other either. Probably because they were all in such a rush, which made sense in somewhere as busy as London; but he wondered if there was any street in this city comparable to Asmara’s tree-lined Independence Avenue, where people would just wander along slowly, hand in hand with friends, sit outside espresso bars, watch the world go by, exchange greetings.
He stopped short in front of large metal sign outside an office block that read:
theguardian
The Observer
Was this really the headquarters of the famous newspaper? How fortuitous that he’d just happened to walk past it! Was it a sign? He paused, and imagined himself dressed in a pristine suit with a crisp shirt, briefcase in hand, getting ready to walk into the building. I’ m here for an interview, he’d tell the receptionist assuredly. Yes, for the columnist job. A woman came out of the building, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, pulling her mobile phone out of her pocket, making a call as she passed him. Did she work in there, dressed like that? Was that normal here? What did he know? What would he ever know about the world of journalists in this city? Another woman came out, and gave him a long look – which prompted him to carry on walking. He couldn’t be caught loitering outside somewhere important like that. Realistically, he would probably never get to walk inside such an office except to clean it.
Cleaning toilets for small change donations in a run-down shopping mall or something: that was the kind of ambition he knew he should content himself with, at least at the beginning. But how would he even land a job like that, with no connections? Should he find a run-down shopping centre, wait nearby in a discreet spot until it closed and cleaners arrived, then dash over and enquire about work? But there didn’t seem to be any shopping centres around here, or anything particularly run-down. Perhaps he’d be better off away from the city centre and its elite workplaces, where police would no doubt be hyper-alert to scruffy, reeking black men…
The name Canning Town popped into his head. Bin Man Joe had said his brother lived there, that it was in the east of London. It was a bit random, but why not? The brother had moved there not long ago and found work, so why shouldn’t he? He looked around for someone to ask directions. A black lady with a wide smile was leaning against a wall, chatting on her phone, and cackling every so often with an infectious wheeze. He waited until she’d hung up, then approached her. ‘Excuse me. I’m trying to find Canning Town.’
She frowned. ‘Canning Town? What’s that on – Jubilee, I think.’ Yonas wondered whether the meaning of this should be obvious. ‘Take the un-der-ground train,’ she said, splitting the syllables as if he were deaf. ‘Farringdon’s just over there. Good luck!’ She walked off briskly, as if she didn’t want to be seen with him for another second.
Inside this station entrance, Yonas came up against a row of waist-high electronic gates. He looked up to see CCTV cameras perched like hawks. He would have to walk. Not the end of the world; he could tell from the sun which way was east.
Shortly, the afternoon dimmed, dusk intensified, doubt and hunger set in. Having strayed from the main roads, Yonas found himself wandering a network of residential streets. The houses around him were tall and elegant and forbidding, and long windows wore neat flower boxes underneath like military moustaches. A glow from a basement drew him over. Peering down, he saw a cream-coloured kitchen, spacious and clean, with wide counters. On one of them sat a fruit bowl, piled with apples, bananas and oranges and – yes – a mango. Yonas was tempted to force open the window, leap down, grab it and bite right into it. He could just make out the smell of something deliciously savoury. Curved lamps in corners cast a warm glow. When he crouched, he could see a candlelit table at the back, around which two parents and three children were eating spaghetti and laughing. He pictured his mother staggering to the table with a huge, steaming pot for her rambunctious brood and it struck him anew that he would not only never see her again, he would probably never see any of them again, and he would be lucky if he ended up with any kind of family of his own. Even with a table of his own.
He continued along more residential streets, past some apartment blocks and up some dead-end roads, until he was so tired his bones ached. He spotted a wide doorstep, big enough for a curled-up body. Nobody was around. He sat down, hooked his feet up beside him, eased down into a foetal position, and nestled his head in the crook of his arm, feeling like he had just climbed into a cold stone coffin. He pulled his wooden rooster out of his pocket. Just me and you, little friend, he whispered, stroking it with the top of his fingertip – the few millimetres between the nail and the scarring. He thought about what would happen if he died here. Nobody would have a funeral for him. What did the UK authorities do with random African bodies found on the streets? Burn them? He imagined being stuffed in a bin bag, then deposited on a pile of other vagrants, and tossed into a vast, bright, smoky fire, crackling and fizzling with amber, gold, orange, red, his trousers catching, the flames licking eagerly up his legs, but it didn’t feel hot, oddly, it somehow felt cold, numbing, stiffening…
He sat up, panicking, then rubbed his eyes. Daylight! He must have been asleep for hours. He was chilly, but intact. And alone. Utterly alone. No Gebre to consult with about what to do next. He watched the scattered white clouds drift for a minute or two across a faintly blue sky, imagining them floating gently over the ocean towards Eritrea. Then he got up jerkily, and staggered towards the sound of traffic.
Back on a main road, car horns blared like a tin pan band. His mouth was sour – all he wanted right now was a drink of water and a pee. He managed to blag some tap water from a small café, and the girl behind the counter reluctantly allowed him to use their toilet. The warm water from the tap on his hands and face felt delightful, the hand drier even better. Could he get away with a full body wash? Someone would inevitably knock on the door again. He wiped his armpits cursorily, and slipped back out.
By midday he found himself amid a glass forest. Here were the smart suits he’d been expecting to see everywhere in this city, the immaculate hair-dos, and each person he passed was talking on a phone, texting or listening to something through headphones. He passed a particularly well-tailored suit, whose owner’s face was so glum that Yonas was tempted to stop him and ask: What could possibly be so bad in your life? Do you want to swap? He imagined the man walking through his front door back home, no doubt in a splendid Victorian house, hanging up that fine jacket as if it were an invisibility cloak, then hearing his children rush down the stairs shouting Daddy! Daddy! Would he finally crack a smile then?
A trio walked past eating what looked like lumps of rice wrapped in black paper out of cardboard trays. One of the women was whining: ‘He didn’t even offer to pay. I was like, hello, I’m a feminist and stuff but, like, I still want my first date paid for.’ The other woman cooed sympathetically, and one chucked her box in the bin with at least half the contents left in it. Yonas walked over to the bin, eager, mouth watering for whatever the food was – but he couldn’t bring himself to dig in. Not yet. And not here. It was too conspicuous.
He decided to carry on, but regretted that decision as his hunger deepened. Crowded though the pavement was, he noticed people were staring at him, and giving him as wide a berth as possible. He was tempted to walk into one of the shops displaying geometrically ironed shirts and trousers, take a few sets into a changing room to try on, leave his rancid overalls on the floor and walk out again.
His energy was plummeting now. He passed the open door of a corner shop, lined with brightly wrapped chocolate bars, and paused, salivating. Could he slip one in his pocket without being noticed? But the shop owner, an Indian man, gave him a hard stare, and he retreated. He was just turning another corner and summoning up the will to dig in a bin after all, when he spotted a man serving hot food from a cart to a queue of people. Several were already standing around eating it off paper plates… it looked like rice and curry. And then he noticed what seemed too good to be true: people were accepting it without giving the server any money! He sidled up to a man who’d just started tucking into his plateful to ask if he really just took it without paying.
‘Mate, you’d better believe it.’ He laughed, spraying out a couple of bits of rice. ‘Those Hare Krishna dudes.’
‘Krishna?’
‘Yeah, it’s a kind of religion where you have to give food away for free. Some people call them crazy bastards but hey, I’m not about to sniff at a complimentary lunch. Even if it is veggie.’
‘You have to be a believer?’
‘Na, mate, anyone can just take the nosh and those dudes are happy.’
As Yonas queued, saliva now exploding inside his cheeks at such a rate it was hard to swallow, he imagined the clamour there would be if a free food cart were to materialize at home. People would probably stay away, thinking it was a government trap. Finally his own plate was piled up, and he started shovelling food into his mouth. It was so good to eat! His tongue was immediately scalded, but he gobbled on regardless, almost ecstatic at the spices, the vegetables! Maybe this was the turning point. If he could pick up free meals as tasty as this on the street, life in the UK would be a breeze.
After a second helping, he headed eastwards again, re-energized. The city around him became multidimensional and multi-layered as he started connecting everything he saw with sparks of memory, films, BBC news clips, old magazines, his father’s books. He noticed how many of the shiny shopfronts at ground-floor level were sitting at the feet of grand historic buildings, and how they were interspersed haphazardly among modern, linear blocks, and how all of them were in such good condition, none of them crumbling or dripping with telephone wires, and how every so often there would be little grassy parks and trees spreading nature through the city like a sprinkling of herbs on a salad. Passing one of these parks, he paused to watch a guy with a paunch being egged on by someone who looked like a personal trainer as he skipped furiously and kept tripping over his rope. A short distance away there was a wheelchair and a woman with a prosthetic leg next to it, doing press-ups. If only Sheshy could get a prosthetic in that league; it looked futuristic compared to the ones the martyrs got back home.
He was about to cross at a junction when he saw a van pull up with a huge black advert plastered on its side:
In the UK illegally?
GO HOME OR FACE ARREST
Text HOME to 78080
And in a square box in the top corner of the van, like an official passport stamp, it said:
106
ARRESTS
LAST WEEK
IN YOUR AREA
His stomach clenched, and he stopped dead still. He couldn’t see in the windows, couldn’t tell whether or not the driver had clocked him. He glanced down at his scruffy clothes, his shabby shoes, touched his matted hair, and nearly laughed at himself for not being more conscious of how obviously illegal he looked. He might as well be waving a flag saying Arrest me! What should he do? Was there someone in that van poised to jump out and make the 107th arrest? He couldn’t cross the road right in front of it. Not now. But then if he turned and ran it would look suspicious… He crouched and pretended to do up his shoelace, making himself as small as possible. Time crawled, except for the demonic pounding of his heart. But after what can only have been a few seconds, the lights changed and the van pulled off.
Slowly, creakily, Yonas got up, and carried on walking, feeling as stilted as an old man. He was an idiot to think it might be easy just to wander around and make a life in London, like moulding a new version of himself out of a fresh piece of clay. How could he avoid getting arrested just for looking like this, never mind find work and somewhere to live? Maybe Gebre was right about waiting longer at the factory for fake papers… But he was here now. He had to keep going, and find somewhere to have a wash and get fresh clothes. But then he halted again, as he saw, walking towards him, a broad-shouldered white man dressed all in black wearing sunglasses… Oh God, it was… no, it wasn’t, was it? Of course it wasn’t. Yonas sighed shakily, and walked on.
Finally, he came upon a sign for Canning Town. From the name he had expected a small suburb full of pretty houses lined up neatly like tin cans in a supermarket, and he’d half-convinced himself he’d bump into a man who would look like the double of Bin Man Joe, just strolling along with his family, shielding his eyes with one hand as he looked around for his new Eritrean nephew. Instead, Yonas found himself on a highway under a huge concrete road underpass, roaring with cars, and after that, in the middle of an industrial estate. It didn’t seem as if anybody lived here at all. There was just factory building after factory building. What a stupid decision to come here just because of Bin Man Joe, when he could have gone somewhere like Arsenal, or Chelsea, or, more practically, sought out an Eritrean church… But then he spotted a human being. A man, youngish, maybe about his age, wearing overalls. Yonas was just wondering whether to approach him, when the man saw him, and crossed the road towards him, walking fast. Yonas’s heart raced – why was he being approached? Was he about to get arrested? Mugged? If so, his total lack of valuable belongings would either leave him unscathed or infuriate his attacker…
They were now standing face to face on the pavement. There was nobody else around. ‘Hi,’ the man said, not exactly threateningly. If this was a mugging, it was a strange way to go about it. The man had messy black hair and creases around his eyes. ‘You are looking for work?’
Yonas laughed involuntarily. ‘How did you guess?’
‘Smells like you need somewhere for sleep too,’ the man said, and smiled back, revealing a gap between his front teeth.
Yonas nodded. ‘You know somewhere?’
‘I do. I am happy I found you. You stay, then I get commission, okay?’
‘Maybe, but I do not know yet what you are offering me.’
‘Good point. I take you to see Uncle. Follow me.’
Uncle? Friendly or sinister? Maybe it was fate: lose an auntie, gain an uncle. Yonas followed the man through a gate into the potholed forecourt of a large building, along a narrow gap between the left wall and the fence.
The man turned as he walked. ‘What is your name?’
‘My name?’ Yonas thought frantically, then remembered the bin man. ‘My name is… Joe.’
‘Joe, yeah?’ the man said. ‘And where you come from?’
‘Eritrea. And you?’
‘Emil. From Romania.’ Emil pulled out a key and unlocked a side door, then led Yonas down a dimly lit corridor and up some concrete stairs to another door, on which he knocked three times. The words ‘come in’ floated out.
Inside, a grey-haired man with knitted eyebrows was sitting behind a computer, with three stooping table lamps poised around him like water birds. He didn’t look up. Emil cleared his throat. ‘Uncle, this is new guy. He say his name Joe. Eritrean. Been sleeping rough.’
Uncle appeared to ignore them and continued typing with two fingers. Was this going to be another Aziz? He could hardly look more different: gaunt, with a crooked nose, pointed shoulders and spindly fingers that looked as if they might snap at the next tap. After a little while he looked up, and his eyes were two spikes. ‘So. Joe. You are new to the UK?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know nobody here.’
‘No. I mean, I thought I did, but they… No, I know nobody.’
‘You are willing to work hard?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. If I let you stay here, there are rules to follow.’ Uncle pushed his chair back, stood up and walked around to the front of the desk on which he perched and leaned forward, his dark eyes locking in. ‘How are you at following rules?’
‘Good.’
‘Well, my rules are simple enough. One’ – Uncle stuck up his forefinger – ‘I arrange the work. Two’ – middle finger – ‘you do as much work as I tell you to do, and you don’t work for anyone else. Three’ – ring finger – ‘you never – ever – tell anyone outside about how you got the work or anything about this place. Got it?’
Yonas nodded.
‘You haven’t seen the film, have you?’
Yonas shook his head.
‘Fine. Anyway, if you’ve got the rest, the correct answer would be yes.’
‘Yes,’ Yonas echoed.
‘Because if you talk we are all going to get into trouble. Do you know the meaning of the word trouble?’
‘I do.’
‘Good. If you imagine to yourself the worst possible kinds of trouble, then you’re on the right track.’ I don’t need to imagine, Yonas thought. ‘So, blend in. Don’t get yourself noticed. Keep yourself to yourself. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
Uncle got off the desk and began to pace around the room. ‘Good. You can stay for a trial week. You will do a mixture of work. Construction, cleaning and such like. You will get forty quid a week cash in hand from me, for working however many hours I tell you to work, normally around eight hours a day, for six days per week. In return you get to live here and sleep here for free and I give you work clothes to wear – which it looks like you need right now. If you want to leave I need two weeks’ notice. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ Yonas said immediately. He fought with the corners of his mouth to stop them from smiling.
‘Right. Here’s a tenner to tide you over.’ Yonas took the note and held it gently between his fingers as if it were pressed from gold. He imagined telling Gebre: Only day three, and I’m already in the money, with a real job, and a place to live! Was Gebre wishing he’d followed after all? Or was he still cursing Yonas for abandoning him and Osman?
‘Any questions?’ Uncle asked.
Yonas thought for a second. ‘What’s the film?’ he found himself asking.
‘The film! Oh. Well, I’m not giving it away that easily. You can ask the others. There’s a TV in the living area, so if it’s coming on I may let you know. Now, scarper. I suggest you prioritize a shower.’
Chapter 7: Emil (#ulink_55894d15-8464-55ba-bace-b02f85b4c35d)
UK IMMIGRATION SHOCK 150,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ENTER UK EACH YEAR, SAYS WHISTLEBLOWER EX-HOME OFFICE BOSS
I will take one espresso macchiato, and two spoon sugar. Okay three, just today.
So, you wanna talk about Professor Jojo! Haha, yeah, that’s how I call him, but when I first met him in street, Professor was like opposite word I would think of, okay, I had to even hold my breath, like he smell of shit mix with rotten fish and mouldy cheese in big bag of rubbish when you leave too long before taking outside. You got my point. But when I am looking closer I am thinking: Wait. Nice smile, tall, cheekbones, huuuuge fro all matted and disgusting like rats living inside – but with a proper wash it’s gonna look good! I am even getting a little fantasy…
I can talk about it now, with you, no problem. But back when I meet the Prof, no way. I am so much hoping for another gay to come to live in warehouse, you cannot believe, but I can’t say nothing. I mean, I came to UK because everyone said London scene is awesome and people easy-going compare to rest of Europe – Romania anyway – so I think, okay, maybe there I can be me. But when I arrive I cannot even get work to pay rent, not even think about going out, clubbing, all that. I mean, London is so expensive, so, so, so, SO expensive, it’s not even true. Even room size of small cupboard in shittest area is too much money. So after some time I was living with a load of straight, immigrant guys in warehouse. I mean, not even proper house – this big, old place where they used to repair cars, with one big room out back full of mattresses. Some guys living there even more gay haters than back home. Russians especially. So I try to keep secret, and in case they guess, I am always try to be comedian, so they will like me for being that guy who is making everybody laugh. Problem is, then they start to really like me and wanna hang out, and they like going to pull women, so I have to make excuse. Once I even went out and pulled three women just to make point and get them off my back. Ugh. It’s like I just snog my sisters.
So anyway, Uncle tell Professor Jojo he can stay, and I show him spare sleeping spot – I mean, it is only mattress, okay, but he look right into my eyes and say thank you… like it is biggest favour anybody done him ever in his life, and he lie down, hands behind head, with biggest smile you’ve ever seen. He start saying something about leaving jungle, with like fox and snake kissing dove or something crazy like that, ending up in city with bed to sleep on… I have like no clue what he is talking about, but he tell me it was just a poem he remember, so I applause him and tell him that has got to be first poem anyone ever said in this place, but maybe if he want to fit in with guys here he better rein it in, and also, if he want to be friends even with me, he got to shower, like right now.
He jump up and ask if shower was with hot water, like that would be impossible, and when I said yeah of course, his face lit up like he just got papers from Home Office. I say I can lend him razor and I show him bathroom. He go to look at himself in mirror, then turn to me and his face is angry. I’m thinking, What did I do? He ask if I have scissors, and I’m like, Uhhh, is he gonna stab me or what? But I get them from kitchen. He take and say thanks, then start to chop at his hair like weeds! Just chop chop chop and throwing big lumps down toilet, I mean – I was still imagining it all brushed out ready for dance floor, so I’m like, ‘Wait, please, my friend, keep some!’ But too late. He smile little bit and tell me, ‘My hair needs new start, like me.’ I tell him, ‘Okay, fine, but you can’t leave it all messed up like that. I can cut properly for you. I am cutting everybody’s hair in warehouse – I do yours for free first time. But I am not even touching your head until it’s had, like, three shampoos, okay?!’
When he came out of shower, he smell normal, and his face look so different with no beard, fresh and kind of fragile. But his body super-skinny, like bamboo stick. And his hair! There were tufts sticking out like clown, and now it’s been washed, I can see it’s not fro exactly, like looser curls, soft for touch.
So, I make him coffee in red Malteser mug and tell him to sit so I can start trimming, and we talk. Actually, it is me doing most talking at first. I try to ask him what he’s been doing, where he’s from, stuff like that, but he’s not saying much, just asking me more questions back. And I like talking, you know, so I keep going, but after some time I say to him, ‘Hey, it’s your turn now!’ But he just laugh and say oh, long story, he’s just happy he made it here, then ask more about me. And I get that. I mean, lot of guys in warehouse have shit lives before and not like to talk about past too much, especially if they don’t know you yet. So I just tell him about other guys and about work for Uncle and living in London. And for some reason I am already feeling easy with him, like, you know, he listens, and not everyone does that, right? And he’s sounding interested, he’s making jokes even… and then it just slips out. That I like guys.
I stop. I’m like, oh shit, shit shit shit, I kept that secret for so long, and now I just told to some new guy I don’t even know, who probably hates gays, or is gonna tell. I feel super-nervous, and my hands start shaking, I’m thinking I’m gonna accidentally stick scissors in his scalp. I mean, you know, he seem nice enough, but most straight African guys in warehouse don’t like gays from what I hear – but I am still hoping he will say, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gay as well!!!!’ Haha. Actually he just say ‘okay’, you know, just ‘okay!’, like it’s just one small thing about me, like my favourite colour, like he is totally cool with it. So that was big, big relief.
I ask him, look, can you do me a favour – don’t say nothing? He say no problem, he can keep secrets. Then, still looking away from me, cos I’m cutting his hair, he say his best friend from back home is like me, and he keep that secret too, because back home you can get put in prison. He tell me how that friend, Gebre, is closer to him than his own brother, how his parents basically adopted him as kid, after his father got disappeared. I’m like: ‘Disappeared?’ He explain how before independence Ethiopians would just come and take Eritreans from where they working, or living, no warning, then they never see again, no explain, nothing. He is telling me he feeling guilty now, meeting me, because he never tried to talk to his friend about it. I’m like, ‘You mean you could not talk about his father?’ And he say no – that is bad memory, but occasionally they talk about that – no, he mean he never talk to his friend about him being gay. Then he sort of burst out how he wish he could change that now, and also introduce his friend to me. I’m like, ‘Sure! Bring him right over! And I hope he looks like you!’ (I not really say that last bit.)
Then I ask him, ‘How about you, you married?’ And he shake his head, say no, but not look at me, just start talking about something different. He never ever talk to me about any wife or girlfriend, after that, even when we good friends – always keep private about that stuff. But also he don’t say nothing to other guys in warehouse about me, not whole time we living there. He is solid guy, Professor Jojo.
At first, other guys try testing him. Make him do bins and tell him he’s got to shower last in queue, all that. I’m thinking, How is he gonna deal with that, cos he’s quiet kind of guy, and mostly guys at top of pile are alpha guys, you know – maybe they push him around. But no, he stay cool, he don’t get intimidated. He even make people start to like him, just from small things, like buying pack of cookies, offering around.
So, Uncle tell me I gonna be Professor’s mentor, you know, like, person who’s gonna show him around for work and stuff. I remember first day we get on bus together, and he’s like, amazed that seats are so nice! Stroking his like he got new puppy! I’m like, okay, so today we go to bank where all guys working there sniff coke in toilets, then later we go to gym where guys pump truckloads of iron and grunt like pigs, then tomorrow we have solicitor’s company where they work all hours in clock, and PR company with brainstorming area like pre-school art room for kids who need to roll on beanbags and draw with crayons. He think I’m just being funny. Later he realize it’s all totally true.
So, I show him main sights as bus goes into City, like tower that’s named after a cucumber but looks like massive dildo, and Bank of England that looks like palace. We have fun, pointing out people wearing weird clothes, and just chatting. And he’s good to work with too. Doesn’t mess about, like me, but picks everything up fast, like I only ever have to explain one time, then he got it.
So one morning, after one week or two maybe, I remember one guy left newspaper on his seat on bus and Professor pick it up. Headline is something like ‘Rapist asylum seeker caught with pants down taking a shit on a solid gold toilet studded with diamonds that he bought for his fifty-bedroom castle in Chelsea after selling cocaine to hardworking British businessman who believed they were just buying expensive cornflour’, and he rips it out and puts in his pocket, then carries on reading. I’m like: ‘Wait, what are you doing?!’
He goes: ‘Collecting.’
I’m like: ‘Why?’
He goes: ‘This newspaper is always talking about immigrants and how dangerous they are. Like we are about to take over.’
I’m like: ‘You’re twisted, reading that.’
He just grins. He goes: ‘I just want to know how British people think of people like us. Some of them, anyway. Lots, actually. I think this is the biggest selling paper.’
I’m like: ‘So, you wanna walk around thinking how everyone hates you? I still don’t get it.’
He goes: ‘Look, some people collect stamps, I collect newspapers, okay? It’s normal!’ He’s a geek, okay, but I still not realize how much, until we find out about library.
Oh yeah, so that’s how he got name, Professor. He start bringing library books back to read. Of course, guys start laughing at him. I remember Alfonso ask him one time: ‘How come you get library pass anyway if you’re illegal?’ And he just say he has ways. We know he must be nicking books and we tell him: ‘Hey, if you wanna steal shit, why not get us drugs or alcohol or something useful? DVDs at least! Do you think you gonna win Nobel Prize from reading all these books?’ He says it’s not stealing, he’s bringing books back to library after, and he likes to read, he studied literature at university. University! Turns out he wrote big essay on newspapers in his country. Boris was first one to start calling him Professor, and it stuck – then I added Jojo, so he wouldn’t sound too smart. He used to read so much different stuff, like history books, story books, even dictionary – like, not just to learn English better, but reading meanings of words for fun. For fun! Who does that?
Oh, other thing about Professor I got to tell you is cooking. Haha, especially one meal! Okay, so normally in that warehouse, nobody cooks. Not properly. If we got enough money, we eat McDonald’s cos it’s easy and tastes good and you feel nice and full after. If we got less money, or wanna be more healthy, we eat like soup, or spaghetti hoops, or pasta and sauce or eggs on toast, that kind of shit. Basically, nobody cooks cos we’re guys, and we’re too tired from work, and all we got to cook in that place is microwave and two hotplates anyway. But when it came near to Christmas… okay, from like October – you know how in UK shop windows get stuffed way early with gifts, flashing lights, snowflakes, discount signs, and everybody is walking around with big fat shopping bags, cos all British people have credit cards – Professor read in one newspaper that average British person spend £200 on presents! What was I saying? Oh, yeah, so when it came near to Christmas, Professor ask me what we do in warehouse. Like, for celebrations. Especially for eating.
I tell him I guess we’ll do like year before: put up tinsel and some pound shop lights, then on Christmas Day get drunk and eat chips and cheese and watch TV. And then on 27th when there is discount everywhere, last year I buy frozen UK Christmas food like mince pies and turkey and eat later. But basically there’s no big meal or anything, we all eat our own stuff like normal.
But Professor say to me: ‘How about we have Christmas feast all together?’
I’m like: ‘Well, if you get the food and cook then maybe the guys will go for it!’
He goes: ‘Okay, I can try if people chip in some money.’ He tell me back in his country, only women cook, but he thinking it cannot be that hard – he seen male chefs cooking on TV and he want to learn himself now he is here. And also he say Christmas in his country is not even in December, so he wants to try British one.
I’m like: ‘What? Christmas not in December? Are you serious?’
He goes: ‘It’s Orthodox Christmas.’ Always happens on seven of January. And for dinner they eat roasted goat, and panettone, you know? – it’s like Italian bread thing that is all light and soft and taste of lemons – and bowls of popcorn, and super-strong coffee, beans roasted fresh that day.
I’m like: ‘Mmm, sounds nice! Wanna make it for me?’
And he say okay, he will try to make one of each kind of dinner, one for British Christmas and one for Eritrea Christmas, if he can get others to chip in money. I’m thinking the guys will just laugh at him, but they pretty much all up for it! They each give him, like, four quid or something.
So, on Christmas Day we all get up to eat toast for breakfast, then sit around on cushions and mattresses and get drunk, smoke, start to watch stuff on morning TV, like It’s a Wonderful Life, and some film about snowman. Professor is sitting at table, chopping parsnips and potatoes – he got extra paper plates and cutlery so we can all eat at same time, and they are towered up on table next to him, all ready, and he’s got stuffing and cranberry sauce, and we’re all thinking, Yeahhhh, feast time soon, and getting hungry, you know…
And then there’s this BANG! Like proper explosion. Like bomb. And everyone’s like, What the fuck? Is this terrorist attack? Some guys scream, and we all look around, and Professor Jojo has fallen on floor on his back, and there’s flames coming out of microwave, like, big flames! Oh my God, such a stink, of like burning plastic, and raw meat splattered everywhere like some crazy baby thrown its purée around… I grab fire blanket, and we throw on water and put out fire, then we asking if Professor is okay, and what happen? He gets up slowly and says he’s okay, but he look shocked.
So I say to him again, like: ‘What happen?’
And he goes: ‘I don’t know, I just put chicken in to cook…’
And then Histoire is like: ‘Ow long for?’
And he goes: ‘Just one hour!’
And Histoire’s like: ‘Fucking idiot, look what you ’av done,’ – all angry. But I’m thinking, oh my God – putting chicken in microwave for one hour!!! Like, of course it’s gonna explode, and maybe blow up whole building, and this guy probably never even used microwave before in his whole life, and it is kind of amazing all of us not covered in chicken guts and on fire ourselves, this is like most hilarious thing ever happen in warehouse, maybe even in my whole life, and I start laughing and laughing, like I’m crying, and other guys all start laughing too, even Histoire, and even Professor Jojo. We tell him don’t worry, we don’t need no microwave, we can live on McDonald’s for a while! And Uncle will probably buy us new one anyway if we say it broke. Plus we can still eat rest of Christmas food, like stuffing and potatoes – by some miracle most of it is not covered in raw chicken. And actually it taste not bad. We give Professor big round of applause, then eat in front of Queen doing her boring speech, then fill up on mince pies, and life seems pretty good. For a day.
So, when Eritrea Christmas come around, Professor is still gonna go ahead with cooking special meal like they have back there, but he refuse to take money from guys this time round, even though we try to give to him – I think he’s feeling bad about explosion even though it was just mistake. He fry up sausages for us, and make popcorn in a pan and strong coffee, and he keep on saying sorry it is instant coffee, but we don’t care. He stew up apples with cinnamon to serve with sausages, and we all sit together again to eat – this is second time in two weeks, and I mean, most of guys in warehouse are bastards so far as I’m concern, and I never thought I’d be sitting to eat with them – but it did feel kind of nice, almost like family, just for couple of hours. Everyone does a big ‘cheers’ with drinks for chef.
But after, when Professor is washing up, I go to help him out, and he’s kind of quiet. I ask what’s wrong, and he says nothing, just thinking about family, what they’re doing, if they’ve had Christmas meal already. I can tell he’s homesick. All of us are, even if we hate our homeland, even if we never ever wanna go back. It’s still home, you know? So anyway, I just got phone as present from sisters (Uncle banned phones in there but I had mine hidden), so I offer Professor to call home on it if he wants, so he not have to go out to phone box to speak to his sister like usual. He’s super-grateful.
So he takes it to corridor, and when I go to take rubbish out, I hear him talking. It’s not like I expected, a Happy Christmas everyone! type of conversation – he saying he promise he’ll send money soon. After, I ask if everything’s okay. He tell me things are hard for his sister, cos she could get arrested any time, because of him. I’m like, woah, you like gangsta or something? And he’s like, no, it’s just he wrote article saying everyone shouldn’t all have to do military service their whole life, and because of that, they put him in jail, and when he escaped, they came to his house and threaten his sister and took all his shit. I’m like, oh. That is bad. And then he say his sister got a little daughter and no husband, and she’s got to look after their brother who got his legs blown off, and grandmother who can’t remember what she did ten minutes ago, and they all rely on him for money cos their parents are dead, and now government is after them for extra tax money, just cos he left! He got all worked up talking about it, then suddenly he stop and ask if we can talk about something else. So we did. But I remember it, and I had proper respect for Professor after that. Like, my life was lush compared to his, but he never complain like me, he just tell me about it that one time, and then just cos I ask about it. I reckon if I was him, with all that going on, I would be in some kind of big black depression, you know, drinking vodka with Russian guys every night and crying like baby.
So anyway, yeah, few months in, we good friends, and one day I look at Professor Jojo coming out of shower, and remember day one when he’s stick thin and stinking, and I’m thinking, Wow, you got muscles now! I don’t say nothing, but I’m like: I knew you would be hot. And one night soon after that, Alfonso (who thinks he’s Leonardo DiCaprio), he take Professor out to pull women. But Professor never come back after and go on about how he got laid, even though I know the girls went mad for him, cos Udaze said. He just said it was okay, but he can’t believe how one drink in pub cost more than ten cans from supermarket, and he not get how people expect you to buy rounds for everybody, so that was last time he doing that. I told him he don’t need to meet no girls in pub anyway, right, he’s already married – to books!
Actually, one day I feel bored and I start looking into one of his books, and thinking, hmm, like maybe I need to make more effort with education, all that shit. But a few pages of English and my head hurt! So I put it down, switch on TV. I’m more, like, people kind of guy. For me life is for living.
And then I’m like: wait, but if life is for living, how am I still here in this warehouse after six months? I tell myself, okay Emil, you gonna focus now. You need get out of here and live in proper apartment or house or something, so you can come out to people you living with, like this whole London thing supposed to be about. No way you can save enough money or meet new people with this shit pay.
So, that night I take all my savings and I’m like, right this is it, I don’t have any family to support like Professor, so I’m gonna take risk: I’m gonna go to G.A.Y. – you know, like biggest gay club in town – and I’m gonna party like it’s last night on earth and meet people who got better places to live and can help make my life different, somehow. I mean, it’s big gamble, I know. But I’m like, fuck it, I’m gonna do this one big night, for me, just how I want it, this one time, and it’s gonna be amazing. So I go there, and oh my God. SO much fun. I dance like crazy, I pull a couple of guys and I go back with one of them to his flat and, wow, I’m like, life is good right now, even if it’s shit again tomorrow.
But it actually works out! So, not too long after, one of my new friends tell me he play in this band and that’s how I got to join... actually, I probably would not even be doing that if Professor Jojo hadn’t come along. Let me explain.
Back in Romania I used to play violin. Like all time when I was kid, and then I play in wedding band and earn my living for some time – it’s not much money, but I loved it. So I brought violin to UK, but I never play it. But then one day in warehouse when everyone’s out and it’s just me and Professor Jojo, he finds violin at back of big cupboard, and ask about it. I told him it’s mine but I not play any more. He ask me please to play for him, and I say no, no, but he keep pressing. And I’m like, okay, fine, so I pick it up, thinking I can just scratch some tune and put it back. But then I play this song my grandmother teach me, and it is first time touching violin since I left my country, and since I saw her – and oh my God, this feeling just hit me. I’m not expecting it, you know? And fat stupid tears just start falling out of my eyes, like river, so fast I cannot even play, and I’m like, what is wrong with me! I put violin away, and I cannot believe I’m crying in front of another guy, but Professor tell me wait, don’t stop, play more, and I tell him no, but I end up admit to him about my grandmother and how she disowned me when I came out to her, and how she die a year later, and how I feel so bad about letting her down. So bad, like maybe it was me breaking her heart and killing her, and how that was when I decide to get out of my country and come to UK.
Professor just listen. Then he tell me his mother used to sing, and he and his sister played an instrument called car or something like that, and he really miss music from home. He say, if I have violin here and I can play, I should do it, and keep my culture alive inside of me. He say my grandmother would want me to. But I tell him no no no – you know, I’m not into it any more.
But when I find out one of my new friends has got band that’s like Eastern European folk but with urban twist, it sounded cool, and I remember what Professor said, so I ask if I can try out, just jamming with them one time, and now I play with them regularly! It’s, like, music you go crazy for, and we perform wearing wigs and traditional dresses. It’s hilarious. I love it.
So, anyway it was one of my friends from the band who offer me place to live in house after the warehouse got raided – like, proper house in Brixton that look on outside like kind of house with normal family living there, except inside there’s six gays squatting. And then through another friend from that group I get proper job wrapping sandwiches for supermarket. Pay every week, better money – everything coming together. Best of all, I can stop pretending to be alpha guy – so I shave my hair at bottom and up one side, bleach the ends and get some piercing, and finally I can walk out on street and feel like me. Like the me I was supposed to be.
So anyway, I hope Professor’s not gonna get deported. How his chances looking like? And how about one more coffee? We had late gig last night.
Chapter 8: Yonas (#ulink_20936ec7-e070-55a6-bbe0-4a708c7b9a21)
MIGRANTS CLASH: FRENCH COPS USE TEAR GAS IN RUNNING BATTLES WITH HUNDREDS OF MIGRANTS TRYING TO CLAMBER ON LORRIES BOUND FOR BRITAIN
‘Brother! Is it really you?’
The sound of Melat’s voice for the first time, after so long, made Yonas’s throat swell so that he couldn’t reply straight away, and he had to lean back against the phone box wall. Part of him had been convinced that he wouldn’t get through, that something terrible would have happened, that the police would have come, she’d have been beaten, worse…
‘Hey, are you still there?’ she asked.
‘Yes, yes!’ Yonas laughed, imagining her face in the contour of his reflection in the scratched Perspex window. ‘Sorry – I was just… Never mind. So, I made it to London! How are you all? I have been so worried – they haven’t come to intimidate you again, have they?’
‘Not the police, thank God, but the tax men came, demanding their two per cent. I fended them off this time, and obviously I am still here, but they kept asking me again where you were, kept telling me I must know, I must be getting money from you… they searched your room again and took everything they didn’t take last time. Of course I told them I didn’t know anything, I insisted I wasn’t getting anything from you, and said I feared you were dead, which was true – I even showed them what we had in our kitchen cupboards, just flour for injera and lentils, but they didn’t care, and if it wasn’t for Sheshy in his wheelchair, I think they’d have arrested me. But anyway, we’re okay. Now you – where have you been all this time? Are you with Auntie?’
‘No – I was about to say. That number you gave me did not work.’
‘What?’
‘I know. Every time I tried it said number is not in use. Can you ask if she has changed phone?’
‘Oh. I don’t know – the person who gave it to me moved away. I can ask around to see if somebody else knows but…’
‘Okay, thank you but do not worry yourself too much. I have found a place to live for now. And I can send you some money soon.’
‘Thank you, brother! We are really struggling. So how was the journey?’
‘After Libya? Long story. The boat was bad but the main thing is it didn’t sink. I had to pick vegetables in Italy for a while, and then I had to pretend to be a cabbage to get to France, and we got arrested there but—’
‘Arrested? Oh no – did you go to prison again? Are they looking for you?’
‘No no, do not worry, they did not keep us for long – some guys helped us to escape – it was easy,’ he lied. ‘When they got us to UK we had to work for them for some time to pay them back, so that’s why I haven’t called. But everything is fine now.’ As a little boy, when he used to sit with Melat under the mango tree in the garden doing homework and sharing secrets, he had assumed she would always be there to confide in, to dispense big-sisterly advice. Now it felt like he was the one who had to keep things from her, to protect her.
‘Oh brother, I am so glad,’ she said.
‘Why did I have to call you at Uncle Solomon’s?’ he asked. ‘Is your phone broken?’
‘Our line is cut off – we cannot pay our bills, even though I am braiding women’s hair at our house every spare hour God sends, and mending clothes and sewing for people. And getting hardly any sleep trying to keep the house clean and cooking, caring for Sheshy and Grandmother; even with Lemlem helping me, it is hard, I am always tired… Things are really difficult here, Yonas. It is not just the tax and bills, we have no money for meat or vegetables, and I don’t know how I am going to pay for Lemlem’s school fees next term, never mind the new shoes she needs – the old ones are hurting her feet and have holes in. She knows not to complain, but she keeps asking when you can fly us all over.’
Yonas laughed bitterly. ‘I would love, more than anything, to bring all of you here, but you need to tell the little one not to get her hopes up…’
‘I know, I know,’ Melat said. The sound cut off for a minute, but then her voice returned in a whisper. ‘Listen, I’m scared, Yonas. If the tax men come again, they won’t let me off so lightly. They kept telling me you know where he is, come on, admit it, you know where he is. They had guns and they kept putting their hands on them.’
Yonas could hear her voice wavering, and he winced. He knew what could happen to deserters’ families… but orphaned families? Children whose parents had fought for liberation, who were national heroes? Whose brothers were maimed fighting in the border war? All that might as well have been for nothing now. To the authorities he was a traitor and a deserter and, thanks to him, Melat was tarred with the same brush.
‘What else did they say?’ he asked. He felt like punching the window and shattering it. ‘Did they threaten you with prison?’
‘They had guns for a reason.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Like I told you – I knew nothing. I made them come and see Sheshy, told them I was caring for a martyr.’
Yonas sighed. It could so easily have been him in a wheelchair. ‘How is he?’
‘Miserable. Only thing that makes him smile is playing chess with this friend of his who lost an arm. They play every week.’
Even after all these years it was still hard to imagine Sheshy twinless, having to make friends on his own who would accept him in a wheelchair. Instinctively, Yonas still thought of Sheshy and Tekle as a duo, a pair of cute but irritating toddlers, always together, always scheming and giggling, who pushed over his wooden block towers and tried to copy everything he did, but whom he’d have done anything to defend, even though they would always love each other more than him. ‘Can I speak to him?’ he asked.
‘He’s asleep.’
‘Oh. Well, when he wakes up, tell him… he is brave. Braver than his big brother.’
‘Right.’ Melat’s voice sounded tart, cynical, as if she were thinking: Yes, well, it’s true.
‘Now I am working, we can save up for his prosthetics, Yonas added.’
‘Okay.’
There was a long pause. ‘And how is Grandmother?’
‘Worse.’ Melat puffed out a long breath. ‘She’s gone downhill. I mean, she can barely remember who came to visit five minutes ago and she’s got so cranky and frail…’
Grandmother had been fine before Yonas left, asking him to find her glasses and forgetting what she’d just been about to do, and complaining of the odd ache and pain, that was all. She used to be a strong woman, with a steely voice, hard to deal with sometimes, but she would do anything for the family, and adored Melat. Many older women would have disowned a pregnant unmarried granddaughter, but Grandmother had lied gallantly to the whole community, making out that Melat had a fiancé who was killed in battle. And it was Grandmother who had stepped in to help when Melat went through that crazy phase, leaving her tiny baby screeching in one room, and hitting herself on the forehead in another, swearing, saying that she couldn’t look at her any more, that all she saw was him, that her life was ruined, that she wanted to throw the baby out of the window. Yonas had panicked, and tried to shout some sense into his sister, but Grandmother had kept cool, just told Melat calmly to rest, to sleep, and to let her tend to Lemlem for a while, even in the night-time. Gradually the darkness in Melat’s eyes had faded, and she even started to take delight in Lemlem’s smiles, her kamikaze crawling.
‘I wish I could help you more,’ Yonas said. ‘At least some money will come soon. Right now I’m staying with some guys and we are doing things like cleaning mostly, and the money we are earning does not get me far – you would not believe what things cost here! But I will find a better job and place to live soon, and then I can send more…’ He tried to assert this confidently, but heard his voice falter and changed the subject. ‘And what about Lemlem?’
Melat laughed finally, and it was like music. ‘Well, she’s the ray of light. Her schooling is terrible, you know, education here has dive-bombed and most of her classmates can barely read, but at least thanks to Father I know enough to teach her at home. We’re lucky to have his books. She is reading English now, all by herself, she can sit for hours…’
‘Amazing! I wish I could see her.’
‘She misses you. Oh Yonas, I can’t bear the thought of my baby getting conscripted…’
‘Melat, don’t even think about that yet – it’s more than a decade until Lemlem turns seventeen. Things will change.’
‘Mmm. I hope so. Now, tell me about Gebre,’ Melat said. ‘How is he?’
‘Oh, he made it to the UK with me… he’s doing all right, I think.’
‘You think?’
‘He isn’t with me just now – he will be joining soon.’
‘How come? From where?’
He could hear the accusation in Melat’s voice as well as surprise. He couldn’t remember his childhood before Gebre was in it, and Melat probably couldn’t either. ‘He… found different work outside London. He wanted to stay and do that for a bit longer. Look, I’m about to run out of credit, but can I just say hello to Lemlem?’ There was a pause, but he heard Melat call her name, then a fast, drumming sound.
‘Uncle Yonas!’ cried a tiny voice. ‘I can read English now so Mama says I can come and stay with you and go to school in London!’
After hanging up, Yonas stood still for a moment, imagining them all at home, how they’d be chewing over the conversation later. Would he ever get to see them again? How would he forgive himself if the tax men came and beat Melat, or sent her to prison, all because of him?
The graffiti around the phone box walls read:
Emma n Ben 4ever
Live 4 the moment
Get Out this is my urinal
He pulled out Bin Man Joe’s number and typed into the keypad. The ring trilled over and over, like a robotic bird. Just like Auntie, he was never going to answer – perhaps it was a fake number – but then:
‘Hello?’
‘Oh, hello!’ Yonas replied. ‘This is… You took me to the station.’
‘Oh, you! Well, I never…’
‘I just want to say thank you. I thought you would like to know that I found a place to live and a job.’
‘Right! Well, that’s fantastic – good on you.’
‘Also I am calling because… I need to ask you for help one more time. Not for me, but for my friend. He might find you in the same place. I want him to know that he can come to join me.’
Silence.
‘I don’t have a phone yet, but there is a shopkeeper near where I’m living, he knows how to find me, so if you can pass the address to my friend – his name is Gebre – he can find me that way. I can give it to you now, if you have a pen…’
More silence. But Yonas could still hear breathing.
‘It is only one more person’, he added, ‘and Gebre – he is a good guy. A really good guy. He is like my brother. I will be so happy if he can join me in London, and I can help him to get on his feet.’
‘All right then,’ Bin Man Joe said eventually, sounding unconvinced. ‘I’ll grab a pen. But I can’t guarantee nowt, all right? Haven’t seen any sign of any other chums of yours or nowt like that at all, so…’
From the scratchy sound over the line, he did seem to be writing down the address, but his goodbye after that was swift and gruff. Yonas couldn’t help wondering if he’d only agreed to write down the address in order to get him off the phone, and had no intention of passing on any message, or giving any more random lifts to stinking, scared, illegal men. But at least he’d tried.
He walked home, hands in his pockets, staring at the tessellating pavement slabs. Would Gebre ever leave the factory? Would Osman ever be well enough? He should report Aziz to the police, now, today, for their own good… But then, Gebre was right: there was no obvious way to do that anonymously and not get arrested. And even if he managed it, Gebre had chosen to stay there, of his own free will, so what gave Yonas the right to expose him?
As he got settled in the warehouse, and came to know the others living there, he concluded he’d been incredibly lucky that it was Emil he’d bumped into and got as his mentor. The Russian guys were grumpy alcoholics who never washed their sheets, the Ivorian and Nigerian guys boasted and bickered, the Indian guys sneered and kept to themselves. Emil loathed the warehouse as much as any of them, but he was always on the lookout for something to laugh about, like the woman in a legal office who kept a vibrator in her desk drawer tucked under a book about the morality of law, and the overweight guy leaving the gym as they were starting their clean and wolfing two chocolate bars in the space of thirty seconds, then phoning his girlfriend and saying he was just going to grab a salad after his workout and then he’d be home, and the bus driver who kept overtaking other buses as if he were a bitter Formula One reject.
Yonas was glad, though, that Emil’s joker mask had slipped on that first day, when he divulged his secret. Although he wanted it kept quiet in the warehouse, Emil genuinely seemed to anticipate a future in which he would live here openly as a gay man. And why not, if it was legal? Yonas had responded with assiduous nonchalance, as if people he’d just met came out to him all the time, while silently marvelling and wishing he could introduce Emil to Gebre straight away – but, he hoped, it wouldn’t be long until his friend arrived.
The novelty of riding on a comfortable bus soon wore off, and the freedom to choose meals became less miraculous when all Yonas could afford or be bothered with was cheap pasta interspersed with greasy McDonald’s, and when his days were defined by endless bottles of bleach and sprays and mops and dirty coffee cups and toilets and loo roll holders. He didn’t mind the tediousness of the work particularly – it beat the factory, and at least it was paid – but he minded how short a distance the money could stretch. The amount he had left over at the end of a week to wire home to Melat was pitiful, and the prospect of saving enough to pay for a place to live, with a bedroom to himself, a kitchen with more than one hotplate and a bathroom between twenty guys, and clothes that suited him better than the two clown-like outfits he’d got from the charity shop, never mind obtaining a visa, all seemed as remote as a trip to the moon. He couldn’t risk part-time work, but he kept looking out for other full-time options, asking people in small cafés or restaurants about jobs. He got mildly excited about the prospect of teaching English in the dodgy language school above a corner shop, where they didn’t seem bothered about visas, but even the few employers like that who offered him something there couldn’t pay enough for him to rent a room, eat and send any money home.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/ellen-wiles/the-invisible-crowd/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Ellen Wiles
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Социология
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 17.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: ‘A fierce, big-hearted novel.’ Joe Treasure, author of The Book of Air‘Pushes us to find our kinder selves.’ Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You‘A wonderful book.’ Maurice Wren, Chief Executive of the Refugee CouncilOne of the Guardian’s Readers’ Books of the YearLong listed for Not the Booker PrizeAwarded the Victor Turner Prize in 20182nd March 1975In Asmara, Eritrea, Yonas Kelati is born into a world of turmoil. At the same time, on the same day, Jude Munroe takes her first breath in London, England.Thirty Years LaterBlacklisted in his war-ravaged country, Yonas has no option but to flee his home. After a terrible journey, he arrives on a bleak English coast.By a twist of fate, Yonas’ asylum case lands on Jude’s desk. Opening the file, she finds a patchwork of witness statements from those who met Yonas along his journey: a lifetime the same length of hers, reduced to a few scraps of paper.Soon, Jude will stand up in court and tell Yonas’ story. How she tells it will change his life forever.Fearless, uplifting and compelling, The Invisible Crowd is a powerful debut novel about loyalty, kindness – and the brief moments which define our lives.Amazon reviewers love The Invisible Crowd:‘One of the best novels I’ve read this year.’‘I found myself absorbed from page one.’‘A delight to read while also being thought provoking and super relevant.’‘Beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant, I highly recommend it.’‘A debut novel with a huge heart.’‘The Invisible Crowd is compelling from the first page and will pull your heart kicking and screaming through the turmoil of finding a home, safety, and love.’