Divinity Road (18 page)

Rafferty looks at her sadly and shrugs.

The capital and the site location are both within the same country, but they’re a thousand miles apart. Think about those distances. That’s like going to Milan to look for something in Wales.

Please, says Nuala, a plea in her voice.

It’s out of our hands. I’ve told you, we’ve tried. They’ve said no. I’m sorry.

A temporary dead-end. Nuala leaves the building fuelled by a cold, dark fury, an absolute refusal to accept what, according to these people, fate has dished out to her. She makes her way back to Oxford flanked by her two closest companions, Anger and Denial

***

A new phenomenon emerges, a change in Nuala’s outlook that manifests itself in her attitude to her children. It begins as a creeping over-protectiveness underpinned by a feeling of impending catastrophe that suffuses her everyday life. Unable as yet to deal rationally with this growing need, she allows it to become an all-consuming obsession, an insatiable urge to check and recheck on her children’s welfare.

When she’s not with them, her mobile never leaves her person. Five minutes cannot pass without a glance at the display, dreading the confirmation of the calamity she expects at any instant. A running commentary of ghastly what-ifs loops around her brain. When the parents of her children’s friends invite them to the park or pool, she finds herself casually suggesting that she accompany them instead. When there are invitations to play at their friends’ houses, she makes some excuse to switch the venue to her own. Will something ghastly happen to Sammy and Beth if she’s not there to watch over them? Impossible to answer, but for the moment it’s a risk she cannot take.

***

Meanwhile, Nuala continues to function in a state of suspension. There are better days and worse ones, some where she’s barely able to see her way through breakfast for the children, the school pick-up, evening tea, let alone beyond that to the future.

Friends and family have rallied round. Her parents refuse to be put off. They insist on a three-day visit that she can barely remember, an endless round of tea and toast. She talks to Greg’s family every day, but they’ve run out of things to say. They have covered everything except the likelihood of his death. It’s too early for that, so they skirt around it carefully.

She’s deeply touched by her Oxford friends: the women from her book group, Mary and the other mothers of her children’s friends, Teri and her colleagues at work, Joan and the neighbours. They phone and text, drop round cooked meals, offer to shop and sort out laundry as if she is an invalid. She refuses what she can, accepts what she has to. Activity is still the only pain relief, so all these offers of help are appreciated but unwanted.

She feels most calm in the early evening, occupied by cooking and her children’s requirements – Lego with Sammy, homework with Beth. She’s aware that for the moment the most she can expect is to survive each grim, bloody day. The past has nullified the present, cancelled out the future.

When the children sleep she prowls around the house. This is the time when her stranger urges are given freer rein, those irrational superstitious feelings that come and go in no clear pattern. The CD player in the kitchen still contains the album Greg played the evening before his departure, a Fats Waller compilation beloved by the children and their father alike, and Nuala finds herself unable either to remove it or to play it, so it remains in its slot and she’s forced to rely on the radio for distraction. Down in the basement studio Nuala finds a tube of alizarin crimson, its top lying next to it. Greg must have forgotten to screw it back on, but she cannot bear to do it herself. It’s a bizarre fear of disturbing the status quo. He’s alive until he’s dead.

Occasionally, as she passes her piano, she stops and lets her fingers run softly across the keyboard, but she cannot bring herself to play.

She’s still not back at work, but plans a return for the following Monday. She needs the distraction, an escape from her self-pity. At night she lies awake in the dark, eyes closed, and imagines her misfortune displayed in front of her like the bright lights used in prison torture, like a neon sign pulsating, its message burning through her eyelids, flashing on and off and on, HE IS GONE, he is gone, YOU ARE ALONE, you are alone.

Dear Kassa

Moving on, moving on, never staying still for long. I feel so bad for Yanit and Abebe, forever bundled from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, school to school, friendship to friendship. But I know in the long-term it is for the best and I hope they will understand that one day.

Yanit will be ten this year, you would hardly recognise her she has stretched so much. You would get on so well with her. She shares your passion for literature, for the ability of words to weave magic worlds in the mind. She would love to be able to get her hands on your book collection, the one you built up so carefully in Asmara, stored so lovingly on the shelves of your room. Mind you, you would be jealous at the treasures she can access in the libraries here, row upon row of tomes at her disposal and all in English, a language she has mastered with an ease that I can only marvel at, despite all my classes in Addis at secondary school and university and now here on my ESOL courses.

So here we are, a new city, a new home, a new life.

Armed with my Indefinite Leave To Remain status, I left Bristol a month ago. I arrived in Oxford a total stranger and endured the familiar insanity of temporary emergency accommodation, this time a grim bed and breakfast, before finding the support I needed from a local charity, the Open Arms Project. It was the volunteer here, Jenny, who helped sort out the housing benefit that enabled me to leave the B & B and look for the flat I am now living in. It is a privately-owned two-bedroom place above a shop off a street called Hollow Way. There were also long hours spent working through the application form for council housing, though Jenny tells me not to hold my breath.

I enrol the children at the primary school and register with the GP and the dentist. I know the ropes, I have done it so many times before.

Indefinite Leave To Remain? I hear you ask in disbelief. Yes, it is true, a phone call from the solicitor tells us that we have won the court case. Our status is assured, our position as permanent residents in UK secured. The first step to citizenship...

And it was just the kickstart I needed to make possible our getaway from Bristol, from that house which, at night, became little more than a prison. Yanit suffered again, a daily grind of name-calling, slapping and spitting at school. I too had my share of insults and taunts from some of the neighbours. One family in particular seemed to almost encourage their children to pester us. Hours spent scrubbing paint daubed on the front door, cleaning up the strewn rubbish, the dog waste from the garden path. One occasion when a stone was thrown through a downstairs window. I tried to shield all this venom from Yanit and Abebe, but they were aware of the atmosphere if not of all the particular incidents.

In truth, refugee status or not, I could not have stayed there for long.

And Oxford? Yes, I am sure you are thinking, Oh no, not another history lecture! So I will keep it short and sweet as I have only browsed my source of information, a first acquisition from the local library. The book is full of the city’s rich history, its academic heritage of course, as well as its location as the King’s court during the Civil War. I read a section on religious aspects of Oxford’s history, learn about the Oxford Martyrs five hundred years ago, burnt at the stake, victims of religious intolerance, of the dogma of violence, ignorance, bigotry.

And the city itself? Much smaller than Bristol, less than a third its size. Another split personality, half studious professor, half hard-working businessman. A long-standing influx of migrant labour for the car works and for the hospitals, the growth of the Asian community in east Oxford. And that’s not to mention the colourful international student population and the recent arrivals from Eastern Europe. Despite its size, it is truly a city of diversity.

The only down side so far is that this city, lying as it does in the Thames Valley, is damp and wet and foggy. Abebe’s chest has been most affected, and he is beginning to develop some signs of asthma. It is nothing too serious, and the GP has been quick to treat him with inhalers and a spacer device.

It is Ramadan and the Cowley Road lamp posts are hung with Eid decorations, the mosque pokes its head above the urban skyline. The school, not far from the library, is friendly and mixed. Through the mosque I have identified a weekly
Qur’anic
class for young girls that Yanit has started attending on Thursday evenings, a boys’ youth club for Abebe at the community centre on Sunday afternoons.

The flat is quite comfortable, less spacious than the Hartcliffe property and one of the bedrooms is very damp, but it has the essentials – central heating, cooker, washing machine – so it feels like home. The shop underneath is a typical corner grocer’s, owned by my landlord’s cousin. He is somewhat creepy. He eyes me up in an odd way, keeps asking about my husband’s whereabouts. I buy my milk, smile politely.

Jenny, my volunteer worker, has helped register me for more English classes and I have started my first language course in the community centre. It is a welcoming environment, a morning crèche organised for student mothers, a common room set aside for coffee-break socialising. My class is full of like-minded souls, mothers juggling with their housing, their benefits, their children, their Home Office status, the pain of lives lost or left behind. Ramadan is hard in Britain. This year we start on the first day of September. Summer has not yet given way to autumn. The sun does not set until late, so the fasting period lasts sixteen hours. I set my alarm for three to cook, the meal over by four thirty, then nothing until dusk at eight. Neither child really needs to fast yet, they are both too young, but Yanit observes the changes to my lifestyle and she wants to copy me, so I let her join in for the odd day. And then of course it is Abebe’s turn to declare his intention, and again I do not refuse, allow him to try it once or twice. Many of their friends are Muslim. The children go to their homes and watch their families follow the same rituals, and it feels good, as if we are part of the community, like we finally belong.

I remember those nights of cooking, you and I working side by side in the kitchen, Kassa, to produce cuisine worthy of fast-breaking, pulling out loaf after loaf of qitcha and khobz from the oven, plates piled high with injera, pots of zighni and tsebhi bubbling away on the stove. What a team, my dear, what a team!

It is after midnight. I need a few hours’ sleep before the early rise, so I will sign off now.

I have heard nothing from the Red Cross. Tomorrow I will call them and check that they have not lost my contact details.

As always, we think of you in our prayers.

***

Dear Kassa

Eid has come and gone, a happy time for Yanit and Abebe though a strain on my purse, what with new clothes for both of them, a mobile phone for Yanit, a games console for Abebe and the main expense, a new computer that now sits on a table in the lounge. Yes, my dear, we are moving up in the world, embracing twenty-first century technology!

I say the computer is new, which is not entirely accurate. In fact it is second-hand, sold to us by a woman I met at the mosque. I know it is not the latest model, but we can write our homework on it, send emails, go on the internet, and the woman threw in her old printer as part of the deal, as she was getting everything brand new herself.

Abebe has been hankering after a computer ever since he started visiting his new friend, Ibrahim, a Sudanese boy who lives next to the health clinic, just five minutes’ walk away.

Ibrahim, it seems, is something of an expert, has a computer at home and has introduced Abebe to all sorts of PC games and websites. Like Yanit, he has been taught the basics at school and so has an almost intuitive sense of how to manage those infernal machines.

Yanit, too, has mastered the beast, though she uses it for her story-telling, the tales and poems and plays she produces with such ease. Yes, Kassa, you are not the only artist in the family! She is a creative wizard, turning the stories into slide shows or decorating them with illustrations she has come across on the internet.

And don’t forget me. Yes, don’t die of shock, Kassa! Since January I have been taking a weekly computer class, a government initiative, my first opportunity to wrestle with this piece of satanic apparatus. And what a struggle it has been! As the weeks go by it seems clear to me that here is one new trick that this old dog will never master.

No, I should not be so negative. Let me focus on the positives. With the incredible patience of my teacher and the persistence of Yanit, I can switch the monster on, click on the right icons to allow me to write my assignments, to check my spelling, to save and print. I can open my emails, send and reply. But most of all, I can open the miraculous doors of the internet, sweep through into this world of knowledge. This World Wide Web is my liberator, my magical key. It may not seem like much and these few skills represent many hours of blood, sweat and tears, but I cannot tell you how good it makes me feel, powerful and unfettered. I have been given the password to my own freedom.

Since its arrival in our household, that computer has become the focal point of our lives, and also, unfortunately, the source of many of our arguments. Yanit and Abebe squabble over turn-taking, I complain that it has taken over their lives, that they are neglecting homework and household chores. And, I must confess, my own complaints are tinged with guilt, since my first action once the children are in bed and the house tidied is to log on. And what a revelation it is! With Google as my comrade,

I double-you double-you this, dotcom that and, lo! I find myself entering worlds I never thought I could access. Who needs libraries? With the touch of a button I can see train times from Addis to Djibouti, discover the title of Tigist Assefa’s latest bolel CD, locate a new recipe for niter qibe, find the contact detail of the Ethiopian Art Centre in London, peruse the academic calendar of Addis Ababa University, even read the online editions of the
Ethiopian Herald
and
Addis Admass
.

And it is not all about trivia. With a wave of my magic mouse, I find the prayer times at the Manzil Way mosque, compare the cost of school uniform at three different retailers or request a repeat prescription with the GP for Abebe’s asthma puffers. Oh, Kassa, I just wish you were here to share this with me.

I am not limiting myself to computers either. At the Ethnic Minority Business Service, around the corner from my English language classes, I have enrolled on a Back To Work course. They help me craft a pathetically empty curriculum vitae. They take me through interview techniques, show me how to fill in application forms and draft covering letters. I cannot tell you how exciting it feels, my life on track. The sample application forms we practise on are for supermarket shelf-fillers, shop assistants, cleaners. But I dream of my old life. I have set my sights on a teaching assistant post in one of the primary schools, perhaps one day a fully-fledged classroom teacher. A teacher of history.

With the help of my teachers and the internet, I know what I have to do, the challenge that awaits me. First I must master this language fully, achieve the ease and fluency of a native speaker. Then I hope that my Addis University degree will prove to be my passport onto a part-time teacher training course. I do not know whether it is feasible, what new hurdles I will meet, but that is my dream. And without dreams, Kassa, we are nothing.

During coffee breaks in my classes, I sit in the common room and listen to my classmates’ stories. Some are so sad I end up feeling guilty for my own good fortune. The tales of death and rape and torture that have brought these people here are never talked of, remain unspoken, invisible burdens that we carry. What can be mentioned are our present woes of grinding poverty, bureaucratic nightmare, the fear of deportation hanging over us. And finally the symptoms of these misfortunes, the mental illness, the self-harm, the despair.

Yesterday I asked after a Bangladeshi woman who has stopped attending class. Her friend told me she is at home and refuses to leave the house. She had a car accident last year, lost her front teeth, managed to get a bridge fitted privately. Now the bridge keeps falling out and she cannot find an NHS dentist to take her on. She has no money. Her husband has tried gluing the bridge into place but it no longer holds and she is too embarrassed to be seen in public.

An Iranian friend is distraught. Her fifteen-year-old daughter is being racially abused at school by a gang of girls led by a particularly spiteful bully. This chief tormentor has encouraged her boyfriend and his friends to join in and the daughter’s day has become a nightmare. She is called names, has had her bag slashed, her PE kit stolen. They spit in her lunchbox and graffiti obscenities about her on the toilet walls. Teachers tell her they will look into it but do nothing. When she reacts by slapping one of the gang while being hounded by a mob in the playground, she is spotted by the on-duty teacher and hauled off to the head of year. She is then excluded from school for three days for violent behaviour despite her protestations.

Last weekend, a quiet Friday night at home, my friend, her husband, the daughter and their two other children are sitting in front of the television when there is a crash outside. When they open the door they find a pack of fifteen youths, boys and girls, all in masks, calling for the daughter to come out and face the music. The windscreen of the family car has been smashed. My friend is terrified. The children cower in the hall while the husband, furious, runs out to confront the rabble. A few more stones are thrown, the mob scatter. The police are called. They arrive eventually, take some statements and promise to look into it. The masks are a problem, they say with a shrug. Without a positive identification any progress will be difficult.