This Is Where I Am (52 page)

‘
Ma’ asalama
.’

In the gutters, the sleet is turning brown. The brittle crunch underfoot becoming slippery, drainpipes muttering, running with icy flow.

‘Excuse me –’

A woman turns up her collar and hurries on.

‘Excuse me,’ I ask the next person. A man lugging a box of full bottles.

‘Canny really stop, mate.’

‘Please. Which way is Central Station?’

‘Eh. That way.’ He juts his chin to the right. ‘See when you get to the river, go straight across the bridge, then swing a left, OK?’

‘Thank you. Um – how far?’

‘It’s a straight road. Twenty minutes maybe?’ he calls behind him.

Find the river. Many times I have thought of death, but Rebecca has held me. I have asked Debs to say nothing to her about Azira, yet. Would preparation help? It is not helping me. Children are resilient.

Oh.

Shards of conversation form into sense. Debs said Rebecca knew. She knew, yet she did not confide in me. What manner of clumsy father have I been? Of course Debs will take her; my baby will be waiting there, now.

Unexpected brightness of headlights, the road unravels; I lurch, return to the pavement. There is a long dark glow of gleaming hardness; I find the centre of it, align myself. Strings of streetlamps, furrowing. I inhale, gathering all the thick night air. March straight through the heart of this city.

In the blackness I am eyes and teeth, but my speed makes me visible; people move, respectfully, as I pass, always keeping to the centre. Windows blurring, traffic flashing. I smell the river before I see it. Find my elegant, swinging bridge, which pings with the thud of my shoes. Breathe cooked fat and sick and alcohol, push past revellers who are celebrating the birth of Our Lord with shrieks and pink bare legs. It is a quarter past. I begin to jog, but my feet slither from me. Azira will arrive and I will not be there. Rebecca will be confronted by a ghost. The city writhes with people and noise, a discordant carnival of trumpet bands and elbows barging, the shiny bounce and bump of full-stuffed plastic bags. I jog faster, tense my fists. So many buses shunting, slowing. I squeeze between two of them, sprint across the stop-start street.

Central Station lurks in a tunnel, over tawdry shops and a chip restaurant, its Victorian elegance obscured. I slip under a square, modern arch, find the escalator to take me up into the concourse; it is not fast enough; I leap and slide through bodies. Reach the top. Scan the shiny hall made livid with Christmas lights. It is twenty past, nearly twenty-five past. We are to meet beside a bullet? Debs says there is a giant bullet, near the door to Gordon Street, I am running and looking for a lump of metal when I see –

I see Azira.

I see the curve of my daughter and the stoop of my wife. Bound in a ball of joy. Unmoving.

It is real now. To my God, I give a prayer. I am Thomas. I witness it is real. Huge flares of drumming seize my heart. I melt, re-form. Am balanced and am light. I see Azira’s long hand, her graceful folds. Whirls of people navigate me, each with their definite lives. I see the vulnerability of her neck exposed. My feet will not work and then they are running running while the space expands; I will never reach them.

I am there. This is where I am. With my arms out wide and my wife inside them. Our daughter at our feet.

I have no words.

We touch each other’s lips, relearn each other’s skin. To feel her skin . . . I am aware of Rebecca, of my Deborah shushing her and shushing some dark package which is passed from her to Azira. Brushing me. Azira accepts it calmly as I flinch, I put out my hand to repel this thing, to push it from me, but I cannot touch it. Azira moves the bundle closer: it is her offering, I understand, without meaning to. Without meaning to, my hand nudges the shawl. Falling from brittle curls, a cautious swell of cheek. A damp black eye which blinks above the cheek. It has lashes. Thick lashes. I see the down on his skin catch the radiance that beats through bright glass. His wide black eyes. He is afraid.

I see my daughter’s face.

And I see my wife’s face.

W
â
n ku jecelahay
.

And I see my wife’s face. Echoed in my son’s.

Acknowledgements

Many people and sources helped to shape this book. I’d like to thank: my niece Dr Deborah Wilson and her colleague Dr Mary Cawley for advice on clinical psychology and mental health-procedures in Glasgow; my friends Dr Michael Rennick for a GP’s insight, and Dr Maureen Myant for advice on educational psychology; all the many blogs, internet footage and reports I was able to source on Dadaab; the lovely Omar Kettlewell for advice on Muslim greetings; Mohamed Ibrahim for all his help with Somali words; everyone at the Scottish Refugee Council; my husband Dougie for being my rock and my inspiration; my girls Eidann and Ciorstan for their reading and encouragement; my excellent agent Jo Unwin, Carrie Plitt and all at Conville & Walsh; Bernadette Baxter; Lisa Moylett for all her support; Sarah-Jane Forder for the careful copyedit; my editor Helen Garnons-Williams, Erica Jarnes and all at Bloomsbury for being so welcoming and enthusiastic; Rose Gray, who so kindly bid to name a character at the Lord Provost’s charity auction; and, finally, huge thanks to Abdul and Farida Nasri. This is not their story, but without them, it would not have been written.

A Note on the Author

Karen Campbell is a graduate of Glasgow University’s renowned Creative Writing Masters, and author of
The Twilight Time
,
After the Fire
,
Shadowplay
and
Proof of Life
. A former police officer, and council PR, Karen Campbell won the Best New Scottish Writer Award in 2009. She lives in Galloway.

www.karencampbell.co.uk

By the Same Author

The Twilight Time

After the Fire

Shadowplay

Proof of Life

First published in Great Britain 2013

This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright © 2013 by Karen Campbell

The moral right of the author has been asserted

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eISBN: 978-1-4088-3272-1

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