This Is Where I Am (10 page)

Behind our workstation, another phone rings. A toddler howls.

‘Oh-ho. You and the boss lady were bonding well!’ Gamu is grinning at me. ‘Coffee?’ She waves her empty mug.

I shake my head. She’s lovely, Gamu. She was one of the first people I met at the Refugee Council. It was she who took me through for my mentoring interview with Simon. I’d thought she was an employee, but it turns out she’s a volunteer like me.

‘Oh Lord no. I do this just for love, Debs.’

‘So are you an asylum seeker too?’

‘Tch, no. I’m a nurse.’

Another of my presumptions. While the employees might reflect that necessary diversity, all the volunteers, I assumed, would be white-middle-class and all the clients would be . . . not. Take Geordie, for instance (I’m sure that isn’t his real name). A slim and neat gentleman who hails from Iraq and is the perpetual bearer of a battered briefcase – even when he goes to the loo. Talks to himself a bit as well. I’d thought he was a harmless waif who’d wandered in and been permitted house room. It transpires Geordie is a celebrated professor and mathematician, who volunteers daily, is particularly good with the spreadsheets and has been in asylum limbo for nearly seven years. He carries his life’s work in that briefcase, because the hostel-hovel he lives in has been firebombed twice and his room is ransacked on an almost weekly basis. On his neck and wrists, he bears quiet twisted scars.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised at Gamu’s revelation.

‘I was
invited
here, my darling.’

This was on my first day; we were stuffing down a quick lunchtime sandwich.

‘Yeah. You Scots were so desperate for my skills you begged me to come live here. Heh-heh-heh!’ She’d slapped my back, causing a piece of cheese to go down the wrong way. ‘OK, OK. Tiny white lie. But I did come here to study, you know? Few years ago now – I’m talking two thousand four, two thousand five? And you had this wonderful scheme. We were called “Fresh Talent” –’

‘No – that’s what they called you up the dancing,’ said Len, the most un-PC politics graduate I’ve ever met.

‘Button it, big boy!’

It was fortunate we were in the staffroom.

‘I tell you, Debs, it was a marvellous thing. You guys didn’t have enough nurses, so they say we don’t need a work permit, we can stay, you know? We have proved we are smart, we are working hard. But the best thing is – you
need
us.’ She had lowered her voice, even though it was only us and daft Len in the room. ‘That’s what’s so bad about those poor babes who bowl in here. Don’t nobody need them, you know?’

At the Helpdesk, helping was your job. By definition, every soul who entered your portals (or stood at your slightly shabby counter) was seeking assistance. Choosing to volunteer here meant I wouldn’t risk mortifying myself like I did with that poor boy in the street. With Abdi too, I was finding it awkward to know my boundaries. Working at the Helpdesk was foolproof. Deborah-proof. It would provide that warm, fuzzy glow I was so desperate to ignite, and it would be a preordained exchange, so no one could get hurt.

I’ve just finished dealing with a destitute mum of four when my phone goes again. You’re telephone-based as well as front-facing (I’m learning new jargon by the second), so the whole place is going like a fair pretty much constantly. There’s an urgency that could frighten you if you let it. Abdi is quiet, reserved, with the occasional glimmer of humour. He’s had time and distance to repackage himself. Most folk that trundle in here are on their knees. They are as raw as it is possible to be and still keep walking. But there’s a thrill in it too. Each time I pick up the phone I am tested. Faint, dusty lobes of my brain will cough, I can feel them come to life as I field an enquiry, punch in a number or tug a colleague’s sleeve for help. Not sure about the fuzzy glow yet, mind.

The phone’s still ringing. I give my chair a wee twirl as I reach out.

‘Hello? Scottish Refugee Council.’

‘Aye, this is Baird Street Police Office here. We’ve got a young man at the front desk, claiming to be an asylum seeker.’

‘OK. Do you have a name for him?’ I flick over to my keyboard, fingers poised. Beside the glass door which leads into the foyer, I can see Gamu put her arm round a little girl. The child is Chinese, tiny and round. I doubt she’s even in her teens. From here, she looks pregnant but she can’t possibly be.

‘Naw,’ says Mr Charisma at Baird Street. ‘No name.’

‘Right. Eh . . . d’you get the impression he’s just arrived here?’

‘Looks like it. He’s . . . well, he’s minging, to put it politely. Disny speak a word of English other than “asylum”.’

‘Well, what we need to do –’

‘Look, I’m up to my eyes here, hen. Can you no just send someone up to get him? He keeps greeting.’

‘I’m afraid we don’t have any vehicles . . .’

He sighs. ‘You’re in Cadogan Street, yes?’

‘Just off. Cadogan Square.’

‘And you
will
deal with him?’

‘Well, we’ll do our best. Once we’ve worked out where he’s from we’ll –’

What? I run through my mental checklist. I need to arrange an interpreter. If he’s already claimed asylum, we’ll have to think about emergency housing, check if he’s on his own. I got my fingers burned the last time – arranging a hostel for one, then finding out it was a family of five. And, if he’s not claimed asylum?

Well.

Computer says no
. There is no alternative, and no way we can help. He must present at Liverpool; that is the law. All we can do is point him in the direction of the bus station and give him the money for the fare.

‘Right, I’ll tell him to come down to you lot then,’ says Constable Charisma.

‘Wait!’ I say.

The Chinese girl is shuffling into the waiting room. Gamu seems to be holding her up; she is shivering, soaked. Thin snakes of hair are flattened to her brow.

‘Sorry?’ The policeman does not sound happy.

‘Are you going to make him walk? Baird Street’s miles away.’

‘You’re just after saying you havny got any cars.’

‘But you must have. Surely.’

There is a little pause, and in that pause I see that the Chinese child
is
pregnant. Gamu helps her to a chair and the wee soul won’t let go her hand. Gamu’s telling her she’s going to get someone but the girl is weeping and shaking her head.

‘Can I just tell you,
madam
, we are extremely busy. We’ve no got time to run a taxi service –’

‘Look!’ I yelp.

Isabelle, the caseworker on my other side, raises an eyebrow. She’s my de facto supervisor. But as she doesn’t bodily seize the phone from me, I carry on. Actually, I don’t think I could stop.

‘You have a distressed, destitute asylum seeker, who by your own admission doesn’t speak a word of English. Despite whatever horrors he’s had inflicted on him – quite possibly by people in uniform – he’s come to you for help.
You
. Baird Street is away at the back of beyond – I don’t think
I
could find my way to Cadogan Square from there. In the time it’s taken for us to argue the toss, you could have just stuck him in a passing patrol car and dropped him off here.’

‘Listen, hen. We’re no a charity.’

‘Aye, well we are. I mean, for God’s sake, what if it was you? Can I just tell you – I am an unpaid volunteer, as are many of my colleagues, this charity is seriously lacking in funds, but see if you put him in a taxi, I’ll pay the bloody fare myself. How’s that?’

I hear him clear his throat. ‘Eh, there’s no need for that.’

Here we go. Time for the complaint. Isabelle’s looking at me like I’ve sprouted horns.

The policeman’s voice is flat. ‘I’ll get one of the boys to bring him down. How’s that?’

‘Thank you,’ I say, still watching the Chinese kid. She’s refusing to take her seat. I hang up the phone. Gamu’s half-dragging the girl, trying to get her to stand up or sit down, but she’s curling up on the dirty floor. One of the other women in the waiting room goes to help. I leave the desk. Now Gamu’s crying, and Isabelle’s shouting at her, telling her that the way she’s holding the kid is ‘client assault’. Mrs Winters-call-me-Caro emerges from her eyrie to join in the fray.

‘Hey, there.’ I kneel down on the lino with the little girl. ‘Hey, ssh now. It’s OK. Nobody’s going to hurt you.’

‘Hut you,’ whispers the child. Her eyes are sealed, she’s in a trance.

‘Hey there.’

‘Tere.’

‘Hey there. Ssh.’ I keep repeating nonsense, she echoes it back, no longer moving apart from her blue-tipped lips and small scrabbles of her hands. Caro Winters butts her butt in.

‘What on earth is going on?’

‘The child is kidnapped.’ Gamu shakes Caro’s arm. ‘I’ve seen this before at work. She says she been kidnapped.
Men
did this to her. They keep them, use them – I have seen this before at the hospital. I’m telling her we will get the police.’

‘NO,’ shouts the girl. She starts to stir once more, her feeble body struggling under the heft of her pregnant belly.

‘OK. No police. NO POLICE.’ Caro holds the girl’s face, makes her listen. ‘You hear me? No police. Can we move this out of the public area, people? Gamu, Isabelle, you help me get her into my office.’

Just like a leaf, the girl is swept up. Her drama has flurried us all. We, the waiting room, are changed and ruffled. In one corner, a teenage mother dabs her eyes. Two men frown and look away, and a granny scolds a wailing child. It takes a moment or two for us to settle, before the space the girl was in is filled by someone else, and we recalibrate, move on.

I turn my head from Caro’s office. Raise my voice. ‘Next –’ Three phones ring at once. I lower my gaze, pick one.

I’m learning how to be a refugee.

6.

We are late, late, late. Blood pounding as I jog, then slow, then jog again. Backpack bouncing, Rebecca’s arms are round my windpipe, snake-tight. A black circle bursts inside my eye. She’s there, she’s still there: Deborah is standing by the car, arms folded, her face drawn. Her ankles are crossed; she is tight and crossed. I should have got her to pick us up outside the flats, save this mad hurrying down streets we barely know, but I’m ashamed. Smashed glass everywhere, it would rip the tyres off her car. Litter and dog-waste, rude words on the walls insulting each visitor. Each inmate.

Yes, inmate. That is how I feel and I can tell her none of this. I cannot say why I’m late, or why my daughter is with me. I should have said, texted, phoned. All these various ways in which we can communicate, and I choose none of them. I don’t even tell her how hard it is for me to understand her time, that my one o’clock is your seven o’clock. It makes no sense, but it is so. The fact exists and, daily, I negotiate it.

I set Rebecca down on the pavement, feeling the ice-wind on my neck. Her clinging has sheltered me; she has been the substitute for my scarf which is wound tightly round her neck, the edges tucked inside her coat, across her chest. My beautiful baby is my reason and my excuse. I hope Deborah understands. I watch the pavement, watch my daughter’s booted feet. My brain feels light and transparent. I am a jellyfish.

‘I am sorry we are late, Deborah. This is Rebecca.’

Deborah unfolds herself. Her long coat is open, flapping, and her legs are clad in some tight, green material like the sprites in Rebecca’s library book. I pray Deborah sees the tear-stained eyes, that she knows. A good teacher knows. She walks to where we are, sinks down on long, slim haunches.

‘Hello, Rebecca. How are you? My name is Debs. D-e-bus. Can you remember that?’

Amazingly, Rebecca nods.

‘You all wrapped up cosy then? Because we’re going on an adventure. You like adventures?’

Again, Rebecca nods. Deborah stands up. ‘Oof. My old bones are stiff.’

Rebecca smiles.

My friend Debs feigns astonishment. ‘Wow! What a beautiful smile. You got teeth in there too?’

A giggle, another nod.

‘Good, because you’ll need to bring your teeth as well, so you can eat all the nice food I’ve brought. And guess what – we’re going to eat it outside! It’s called a picnic. Pic-nic. Yes? Does that sound good?’

Rebecca considers. Looks at me. This time I’m the one to nod. ‘That sounds very good, I think. Thank you, Debs.’

I call her this to see if she notices – is the contraction too familiar, meant only for children? – but she is busy opening doors. We get Rebecca in the back seat of the car. Debs sits her on a folded blanket, then fusses with the seatbelt, eventually placing part of it under Rebecca’s arm. ‘We don’t want to hurt your neck, eh?’ To me, she says: ‘I could have hired a car seat too. If you’d said.’

‘I’m sorry. We had . . . no time.’

We speak over Rebecca’s head, one of us either side. Our faces are too close. Debs suddenly stares at me. ‘Abdi! What happened to –’

My jaw hovers, loose. Useless as my fists. I grope to find some words, but she slides over the space I’ve left, refocuses her attention on the seatbelt.