This Is Where I Am (27 page)

‘I was scared, Abdi. She told me it was an ambush. I didn’t know what to do –’

‘Did you believe that you hit the child?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you should have stopped.’

Sometimes his English is too blunt. Its directness is strident and rude. If I turn this back on him, if I blame his ignorance, then I will not . . . I haven’t weakened. I’ve been honest; I have offered my dishonesty truthfully, let it slither out of me like a half-dead child.

Oh.

Oh.

Crying would wash this all down, it would ease it out. So I need to stay dry. I want it to hurt me as hard as it can.

‘If I could go back. If I could change it . . .’

His neutral expression can’t mask his disgust. And it doesn’t really matter what he thinks of me, because I think it all myself.

‘I was scared for my baby, Abdi. Do you understand that? You have Rebecca – you’d do anything to protect her, wouldn’t you? That’s why you won’t let her go to school.’

Only now does he raise his head. ‘Your baby?’

‘I was pregnant at the time.’

This is my story. I can tell it how I like.

‘I thought you had no children. Many times now, I am not sure what it is you say to me.’

‘My baby was called Stephen. He was born three months after we were in Africa. And he lived for seven hours.’

In each of those seven hours I had willed him on, and I had thought of that mother by the roadside, doing exactly the same.

On my glass there is a smear of light, a brilliant translucent streak that runs halfway round the rim, accentuating my lipstick. In the bottom, there are the crumbs from my mouth, on the side a fingerprint. All the places I have touched, and, if I move it, the light will go. I rub my thumb across the surface.

‘So. There. Now you know. That’s why I wanted to help someone from Africa. And I couldn’t . . . I never told Callum. Or anyone. Only you.’

Abdi’s head is down again, he’s looking back in his lap. Knee jigging at the same speed his hands were – he’s texting on his bloody phone.

‘Deborah. We need to go. Geordie’s been detained at Brand Street.’

13. July

The Glasgow Tower

Once the second City of the Empire, Glasgow is still Scotland’s largest city, where thousands of people live and work in an ever-developing cityscape. Walk along the Clydeside and you can chart Glasgow’s proud industrial heritage: from the Tall Ship
Glenlee
and the glory days of sea-borne trade, past the Finnieston Crane – a mighty relic of when Glasgow was the world’s shipbuilder – to the shiny new media and financial districts, there’s proof this adaptable city will always seek new ways to thrive.

Key amongst modern attractions is the Glasgow Science Centre. This glittering glass and titanium dome is a fascinating complex for curious minds, with its Planetarium, Imax, Science Mall and the Glasgow Tower: Scotland’s tallest freestanding building.

Thanks to its aerodynamic design, the tower is the first building in the world able to rotate 360 degrees into the wind. Five hundred spiral steps (or a nice quick lift!) will take you 127 metres up to the viewing pod, for panoramic views north, south, east and west. Combine this sky-high thrill with science workshops, shows and interactive exhibits and you have the perfect day out for schools, families; anyone, in fact, who wants to be challenged and inspired by thoughts of a brighter future.

Please note, admission charges apply.

*

We were too late to save him. By the time I’d got back to the Refugee Council and tried to organise a lawyer, Geordie was gone. Patient, trusting Geordie, who’d sat quietly in the room they’d put him in at Brand Street, who had walked without fuss through the outside door, had said nothing when a uniformed arm gripped his elbow, and, when another slid open the door of the van, had mutely stepped inside. Only then did he ask if he could use his phone. He rang here first, the Refugee Council. What with the accommodation contract being cancelled that day, all those clients coming in or phoning, petrified they were going to be moved, the press demanding comments and spokespeople, me late back and the Refugee Council a volunteer down . . . Well, Geordie phoned. And his was one of those calls that rang and rang, then stopped. Another phone started just two rings before and the girl who would have lifted his and heard his frightened voice took that call instead. I guess he texted Abdi before they took his phone away. They’re not meant to take your phone away. Of course, we thought he’d be taken to Dungavel but, amid all the confusion, and the fact he never turned up there, and then his caseworker making some calls that evening and into the next day, it transpired he’d been moved down south. Straight to Yarl’s Wood, do not pass go. He had it coming, you see.

Geordie was one of the legacy cases. One of the keep-your-head-down-and-don’t-make-a-fuss-and-we’ll-let-you-live-in-limbo cases. In the first influx of asylum seekers coming to Glasgow, the established systems had been unable to cope. Places like Brand Street, the UK Border Agency’s outpost in Scotland, had been set up to speed the sifting. Overwhelmed by new applications as well as old, it was inevitable that some fell through the cracks. Geordie was one of them, just another piece of paper gathering dust at the bottom of the pile. Except, one day, eventually, the bottom gets to the top, and they call you in and off you scurry, thrilled at last to be brought into the light. Or maybe I’m . . . what is it Abdi accused me of? Projecting my own emotions. Maybe Geordie wasn’t thrilled at all. Maybe he went, knowing this was it. That the length of time this country had taken to pay him any heed at all would finally count against him.
Iraq, you say? Times have changed. Things move on. What ‘evidence of torture’?

As the law requires, they left five days between his detention and Geordie boarding the plane. We tried to get him a visitor. There was a lawyer, too, someone nobody knew, and who never knew Geordie. I don’t think there was anything much they could have done. Geordie didn’t struggle. He passed through Heathrow Airport as humbly as he passed through here. His quietly living and scribbling out mathematical proofs and troubling no one had not been enough.

‘He’d got so close.’

‘I know.’

Abdi is still shocked. I am too. How precariously we’re balanced. I know this is a trite thing to say, but it’s
not
a statistic when it happens to an actual face you can see. It’s not our borders one step safer from assault. It’s just shite.

That’s something else. I’m swearing more. It’s like a boil has burst in me and all this filth’s coming out.
Goes with the territory, baby doll
. Or so Gamu tells me.
You start to care, you get angry, yeah? And, man, does it feel good
. I’m not sure it does. Like the creep of Abdi’s need – the need I invited – plus the where-the-hell-did-that-come-from rupture of my pub confession, it scares the shit out of me. But I can’t unknow what I know. And Abdi can’t either.

Beyond that manic beating with his hands, Abdi’s shown no reaction. South Africa hasn’t been mentioned again, and it doesn’t seem to alter how he is with me. Or how I feel about myself. It’s simply there, hanging like the sky. It is what it is, and I can’t change it. There’s no sense of relief, absolutely none, although I’ve never told a soul before. It is entirely uncathartic. As it should be.

From up here in the viewing pod above the Science Centre, you can see the whole lazy stretch of Glasgow. Rising towers and spires, the grey blocks, the green parks, the sandstone tiers and terraces. The River Clyde is a slothful worm, oozing and burrowing on its way to meet its estuary. Largely ignored by the city that built herself on its banks, it’s too silted-up now for the big ships, too skanky to sit beside. Off to my right, I can see the creamy pavement of the north bank walkway, its concrete bandstand daubed in raucous graffiti. Nice idea to relax by the river, listen to a band. But only jakies sit there of an evening, polishing off their meths. Amazing view all the same. Amazing, too, that this thing’s finally working. Since its inception, the Glasgow Tower’s become infamous for faults and closures, its sleek and clever design too tricky for the sullen Glasgow weather. But, at last, they seem to have it sorted, and it’s a slender silver marvel instead of the white elephant it had threatened to become.

We’ve finally finished off the painting in Abdi’s new flat. There’s a cracking view from there too; the block’s not as tall as the high-rise he was in before, but this one’s on a hill. You can see birds swooping past the windows, see the long parade of Mosspark Boulevard, the green of Bellahouston Park, the darker green of Cardonald Cemetery. This symphony in green is lovely outside, but a bit oppressive within. The previous tenant must’ve been a Celtic fan, either that or a rampant naturalist, because every wall and a fair helping of the woodwork was various shades of green.

Do I have to keep it –

No!

We’d settled on white – a blank canvas, we agreed – and I’d donated two huge tins of emulsion. Promised I’d be back at the weekend to help him get started, but, oh no, Abdi had tried to do all the painting himself, armed with a single roller. The gap between ceilings and walls was a muddle of patchy blobs.

‘Did you not use a brush at the corners?’

‘I don’t have a brush. The man in the shop said a roller was quicker.’

‘Yes, but you still need to do your edges. And you’ll need two coats at least. Look, I brought brushes, turps. Here.’ I opened my bag of treasure, handed him a paintbrush. ‘And I got some nice blue for the bathroom.’ I peeled off the plastic lid, so he could see the blue in all its blueness. ‘See?’

‘I have done the bathroom already.’

‘Och, Abdi. I told you you’d to use the waterpoof stuff. Why d’you not wait for me?’

Lamely, Abdi daubed at the gaps on his wall, making pindots of rough colour while resolutely ignoring me.

‘Och, give it here.’ Tossing my head, mock-chiding. ‘For goodness sake, man. Have you never painted a wall before?’

The moment I said it, I wished it back.

‘No.’

His ceilings weren’t like mine, all lofty and full of their own corniced importance. Abdi’s ceilings were low, practical; you could stand on the carpet (also green) and reach the top corners without effort. I eased out the paint, nudging dried blotches into neat lines, pretending my concentration was such that I hadn’t heard him, or I needed to keep my tongue poking out between my teeth. Or something like that.

‘Wall,’ said Rebecca softly. I turned to see her little hand imprinting on the spread of wall below me. Without either of us noticing, she’d managed to get her hand inside the paint pot I had opened. A perfect blue hand waved at us about six inches from the windowsill.

‘Wall,’ I repeated, my insides tingling. Abdi didn’t move. I knelt down so I was eye-level with Rebecca. ‘And are we meant to paint the
wall
with our hands, mucky pup?’ I lifted up her sticky fingers. ‘What is this, madam? Is it a paintbrush? No. It’s a
hand
.
H-A-N-D
.’

‘Hand.’ Glee uncoiling on her face, the irresistible measure of a cheeky grin. Challenging and fearless. A normal, naughty kid. I covered her face with kisses, each kiss provoking a shriek, then I turned her upside down and Abdi tickled her and we bawled and cackled until our bellies ached.

Later, when Rebecca had finally gone to bed –
B-E-D
:
bed
– and we’d finished the Chinese food I ordered, and Abdi had unwrapped his housewarming present (a set of cream towels and a blue glass vase –
Ha! I bring you flowers and you bring me a vase
), he closed his eyes. He must have been exhausted, but there was utter peace about him; that striving, watchful edge had gone. His features fell in comfortable folds, and I thought he was sleeping. Then he spoke. ‘This is a good house, I think.’

At home that night, I counted all my rooms. Lounge, dining room, morning room. Basement/kitchen – with French doors to the garden. Bathroom, en suite, bedroom, spare room. Box room. Walk-in cupboard that’s bigger than Abdi’s kitchen. My floors are rugs and polished wood, my curtains thick brocade which slide on padded tapes to muffle me from the world. My bathroom sparkles, my windows gleam. My furniture is old and solid, not one thing I possess comes from IKEA and yet I bought Abdi a foldaway table called Klunk or Flumf or some aggressive spit of a word. You take your house for granted. The fullness of it. The fact of it. Yes, you could argue that I worked hard to get my house, but did I? Did I really?

Down below us in our viewing pod, Glasgow breathes and settles. Abdi steps away from the glassy wall that holds us in the sky. ‘We should go now,’ he says, as he’s done every ten minutes since we got here. Rebecca is spending an hour at the college crèche, to ‘orientate’ her, the letter said, before she starts there properly next week. And we’ve agreed Mrs Coutts will do a Monday and I’ll do a Tuesday – well, of course I was always going to do it. I’ll drive over first thing, bring her back to my house. We can go to the park, museums, we’ll draw and practise our words (we’re up to about ten words, which is just fantastic). I feel stupid, now, that I got so scared about the teaching thing. I mean, he wasn’t asking me to marry him, just educate his child. What else do I do with my days, other than a twice-weekly stint at the Refugee Council? I had forgotten the deep satisfaction teaching can bring. Not the jaded going through the ropes and requoting poems you can scan in your sleep, while shouting
keep the noise down
and planning what you’ll have for tea, but proper teaching. The magic stuff. When your placing of words and patience makes a spark in another person’s head, and you see it, you
see
it ignite in them, form from chaos. And you are
in
their head, with them when the jumbled dense text becomes brighter and more appealing than a TV screen, or an interpretation (although I think they call it close reading now) becomes literally that, an interpretive mediation where you consider and weigh and unlock the sense of a piece, you break through the impossible thickness of it all and it is there – your clear slim thought – and it broadens and broadens and the chaos becomes overlaid with planks. Strong, shining planks beckoning you on and in. Brave enough to say ‘wall’ like you mean it.