Divided City

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘As boys get older they don’t like chatting with their parents, darling. It’s a fact of life.’

  ‘He’s been a bit preoccupied the last few days,’ said Graham’s mum. ‘D’you think this is the start of his difficult teenage years?’

  ‘You were quizzing him a bit, pet,’ said Graham’s dad.

  ‘But we need to know where he’s been and who with. We don’t want him hanging around with the wrong sort.’

  ‘Liz,’ said Graham’s dad, ‘you knew that this football training wasn’t individual-school based. The head teacher sent letters to every parent explaining the project. All the big cities in Britain have signed up for it – Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, London, Liverpool. It’s one of the government’s initiatives to improve sports skills, encourage youngsters to keep fit, keep them out of mischief, and give the cities of Britain an opportunity to bring communities together and take pride in their youth. The whole idea is that it would be an all-city team, no one area preferred over the other. The trials are open to kids from anywhere in the city. It was great that Graham was chosen from his school to take part and I think it’s good for him to get out with lads his own age from other parts of the city.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ asked Graham’s mum, bristling.

  ‘He has to mix with people from different backgrounds. This boy Joe can’t possibly be at Graham’s school. He lives miles away.’

  ‘Quite a few parents from outside this area try to get their children into Graham’s school. Joe could have been a placing request.’

  ‘It’s not likely though, is it? To follow through a placing request you need to have the means to do it. That’s the insidious aspect about any kind of so-called “choice”. Unless you have money there is no choice. You read the newspapers. Glasgow has some of the most deprived areas in Britain. I’ve worked in these places, I’ve seen what that sort of environment can do to self-esteem. People get desperate and angry. It can lead to violence. Deprivation,’ said Graham’s dad. ‘Deprivation, and all that goes with it, is what really divides this city.’

  ‘I don’t want Graham making unsuitable friends.’

  ‘Graham will be fine. Joe seems a good lad, and I was talking to his dad on the telephone earlier. He sounds like a nice man.’

  ‘Where they live,’ said Graham’s mum, ‘it’s such a different part of the city from this.’

  ‘Is that the real reason you’re worried?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s the “other side”, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by that.’

  ‘It’s because they stay in the Garngath, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not a very nice place,’ said Graham’s mother.

  ‘Not everyone can afford to live in a nice place, Liz.’

  ‘It’s got a reputation.’

  ‘Parts of it have got a reputation. Parts of every area in this city have a reputation. There are streets not far from here that I wouldn’t walk along in daylight, far less in the dark.’

  ‘It’s not the same. Things are different over there.’

  ‘You mean they are different,’ said Graham’s dad. ‘You’re talking about the people who live there, aren’t you? Liz, you know my sister married a Catholic. It might surprise your family but when her children were born they didn’t have a tail and two horns.’

  ‘I know lots of Catholics. Two of the lawyers I work with are Catholics.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re not Catholics who live in the Garngath. You know as well as I do, in Scotland, there’s Catholics, and there’s Catholics. Scotland had Catholics before Irish immigration took place. But the old Catholic Scots from earlier days are almost forgotten about. It’s the Irish Catholic influence that sets some people’s teeth on edge. And your family are from Bridgebar. There’s a conflict there.’

  ‘My family are not prejudiced.’

  ‘Your family are from an area with strong connections to Ulster Protestantism, and are very . . . partisan in their beliefs. Your father is a deeply caring person and worked hard all his life. I love John dearly. And I respect him for how he put his own job on the line when he fought against the closure of the shipyards. But, and I quote, “There are times when he can be a narrow-minded sectarian racist.”’

  ‘Don’t talk about my father like that!’

  Graham’s dad came over and sat beside his wife. ‘It was you I was quoting, Liz. When Graham was a very small boy and you heard your dad trying to persuade him to march in one of the Junior Orange Walks, those were your very words.’

  Graham’s mum was close to tears. ‘Graham’s our only child. And he’ll always be our only child. You know all the problems I had having him. Graham’s my son. A mother has a duty to protect her son. I’m only doing what I think is right.’

  Graham’s dad put his arms around his wife and held her tight.

  Chapter 32

  Graham arrived at school on Monday morning to find a special assembly had been called.

  The head teacher announced that there was a possibility that someone in the school had been involved in an incident in the city on Friday night. A younger boy and an older boy had been attacked by a gang. The older boy had been stabbed. The police wanted to speak to the younger boy, who had run away from the City Hospital.

  A witness had stated that the younger boy had been wearing a school sweatshirt reported to be grey. It may or may not have had a coloured stripe on it. Everyone could see that their school sweatshirt was grey with a purple edging. The boy who was wounded seemed to speak with an eastern European accent. If anyone had any information about the incident could they please come forward?

  Graham’s pulse rate was notching up megabeats but he tried to affect the bored inattention that the rest of his classmates were showing.

  ‘Why are the police looking around out here? It’s obvious where they should be asking their questions,’ said one of Graham’s friends at break time. ‘They should be questioning people in the schools where they’ve got most of the asylum seekers.’

  ‘Yeh, I don’t see why we’re getting grief about it,’ protested another of the boys in Graham’s class. ‘My dad says it’s always teenage Asian boys that get involved in stuff like that.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with them,’ said Graham.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘They said the guy was from eastern Europe. I think that’s what gave me the clue,’ said Graham sarcastically. ‘Like, Asia – over there. Europe – up here. Du-uh?’

  ‘Aye, aye,’ said the other boy. ‘That’s not the point. They’re different from us, see? Don’t have our background, our way of thinking. Don’t look the same even.’

  Graham was still anxious when he left school that afternoon.

  At one point during the day he’d thought of speaking to one of his teachers whom he knew he could trust. Only the fact that he should let Joe know first stopped him. He thought of how bad it would be for Joe’s dad if the police began questioning Joe.

  When the final bell went Graham didn’t walk home as usual. Instead he caught a bus into the city. This time he stayed on until he was in the city centre, where the streets were familiar to him from shopping trips and outings with his parents. He got off in Queen Street and was soon outside the ornate building that housed the Gallery of Modern Art, known to everyone in Glasgow as GOMA. Joe was waiting next to the statue of the man on the horse with the traffic cone on his head. Graham knew it was the Duke of Wellington and that his horse was called Copenhagen. The reason he remembered was because his dad had told him one day last year when they had been driving past the GOMA, and the very next week it had come up in an inter-schools quiz question. His dad had also said that every so often there was a letter to the paper saying how scandalous it was that every weekend some late-night reveller climbed up and stuck a traffic cone on the duke’s head. And although it was always removed, by the following weekend it was back again. Some people thought it was the same cone. Complainers m
oaned on about the lack of respect and said that the police should arrest whoever was doing it. But everybody reckoned that it was never the same person. It had become a Glasgow tradition, like changing the position of the spectacles on Donald Dewar’s statue. More a statement of affection than vandalism. At least it wasn’t ignored like most statues of the famous and not so famous.

  Graham told Joe about the newspaper article and the announcement at his school. ‘The police must have been speaking to the teachers,’ said Graham. ‘They’re onto something.’

  ‘They were at my school too,’ said Joe.

  ‘What!’ Graham exclaimed. ‘How did they find out you were involved? Was it your Cousin Bernie? Did she tell the police we’d been asking about Kyoul?’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Joe. ‘Bernie is family. She would never do that. If she felt obliged to say anything more she’d have spoken to my dad or my granny.’

  ‘Really?’ Graham relaxed.

  ‘Our school has grey sweatshirts too,’ explained Joe. ‘I asked our school janny and he told me the polis are going to every school whose uniform is grey sweatshirts. We’ve a maroon stripe, not purple like yours, but I’ll bet the witness wasn’t sure about that.’

  ‘I was pretty freaked out,’ said Graham. ‘Thought I might be called to a line-up or something.’

  ‘You might still.’

  ‘What? Might still what?’

  ‘Get called to the head’s office.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Think about it. Your teachers know that you go into the city centre for football practice on a Friday. They might think that you saw something on your way home.’

  ‘Except that’s not the way I’m supposed to go home.’

  ‘That’s even better then. Don’t you let on to anyone that you took a short cut. It puts you in the clear. Anyway,’ Joe went on, ‘if they follow up on the asylum seekers lead they’ll talk to the immigrant kids. The whole thing’ll take them weeks, months even. They’re onto plums with that one.’

  The two boys went inside the GOMA to find the library café, where they had arranged to meet Leanne. ‘This is one mad gallery,’ said Joe.

  ‘You come here often?’ Graham jibed.

  ‘Used to. Nearly every week with my ma when I was younger. They hold interactive sessions on a Saturday morning. It’s free and you just turn up. I like it in here. The staff are friendly. Not snotty, like some places. Tell you loads of things about the artists. Explain the stuff to you. Because it’s modern, like, and they think you might not get it.’

  Graham looked at the nearest exhibit as they went through into the museum. It was an enormous complicated construction of wire and metal, in the middle of which sat a garden gnome perched on a bicycle seat. ‘I can see why some of it might need to be explained,’ he said.

  ‘There was an artist working here once,’ said Joe. ‘Stayed for days and days building this huge exhibit. Made up of a burned-out car and thousands of newspapers. They cleared practically the whole ground floor for him to do it. Me and my ma came every day after school. He would stop and talk to us. Brilliant, so it was.’

  ‘Right,’ said Graham. It seemed to be that every time he was getting a handle on what Joe was like he got wrong-footed. He followed Joe in the direction of the café and tried to outstare the garden gnome as he passed by.

  Chapter 33

  Leanne was already waiting for them.

  At first Graham and Joe didn’t recognize her. She looked nearer their age dressed in her school uniform – a dark blazer and plaid pleated skirt. Her eyes looked strained, as if she’d been crying or hadn’t slept well. They got some drinks and sat in a corner to talk.

  ‘Kyoul’s OK,’ said Graham.

  He saw the effect of his words on Leanne. She relaxed immediately.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said.

  ‘My cousin,’ said Joe, ‘the one that’s the nurse – she said the doctors in the hospital think Kyoul can’t remember anything and also that he can’t speak much English.’

  Leanne smiled. ‘Kyoul can speak English really well.’

  ‘So he’s got them well fooled,’ said Joe. ‘He says nothing and acts confused all the time. They seem to believe him because of the shock he must’ve suffered. But Graham saw him and he’s doing fine.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Leanne looked at Graham. ‘Did he speak to you?’

  Graham nodded. ‘They’d to give him blood, but he’s OK.’ He recalled the marks on Kyoul’s chest. ‘He’s safe now,’ he said reassuringly. ‘He was able to talk to me.’

  Leanne’s face crumpled in relief. She began to cry. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Only, I’ve been so worried, and I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.’

  ‘He’s OK,’ Joe repeated. ‘On the mend and that.’

  Leanne rubbed at her eyes. ‘I’ve brought the rest of your reward money,’ she said. ‘Here.’ She took two envelopes from her inside blazer pocket. She put one on the table. ‘Here’s the money you were promised, and there’s some extra notes inside.’

  ‘Extra?’

  ‘Yes.’ Leanne spoke quickly. ‘I’d like you to take this other envelope to Kyoul.’ She placed the second envelope on the table.

  ‘No way!’ said Joe. He took the envelope with the money and handed it to Graham. He didn’t touch the other one. ‘It’s over. We’ve done all we can.’

  ‘Let me explain,’ said Leanne. She went on quickly before they could refuse. ‘After you left on Saturday I thought about Kyoul. About his life. I saw how selfish I’d been. He needs help and in a way I’ve been stopping him getting it. He earns a little money here and there and has me for company so he is happy, because what he came from was so awful. But it isn’t right. He can’t go on like that. On Saturday afternoon I went to the library and they gave me the names of various organizations like the Refugee Council. Some have telephone help lines. And Glasgow has set up asylum drop-in centres all over the city. He could meet people from his own country and the staff there would help him. I’ve written them all down on a piece of paper inside this envelope. You could give it to Kyoul. Tell him if he doesn’t want to phone them I’ll do it for him. He could get advice. It might stop him being deported.’

  ‘Why did Kyoul come here if he knew he wouldn’t be allowed in?’ said Joe.

  ‘He hoped he would,’ said Leanne. She looked from one boy to another. ‘People don’t know the awful reasons why asylum seekers come to Britain or what they’ve gone through to get here. I didn’t until I met Kyoul. Then I began to read up on it.’

  Like me, thought Graham, remembering his Internet search last Friday night.

  Joe didn’t reply. His dad knew about things like this, politics and foreign news, but he’d never paid attention. Joe lived and breathed football. Nothing much else interested him. Though he did remember his dad once describing how the Irish had been treated by some when they’d first come to Scotland. ‘Send them back,’ people had said. ‘Don’t let them in.’ His father said the Irish had been starving. Starving to death. They’d had to go anywhere they could earn money in order to eat.

  ‘I’m begging you to take this to Kyoul.’ Leanne held out the other envelope again.

  Joe shook his head.

  ‘Please. Only this one more time. I’ll pay you extra money.’

  Joe glanced at Graham. ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Kyoul needs this information,’ Leanne pleaded. ‘What if he’s forced to return to his own country?’

  Joe shook his head again.

  ‘How much do you want?’ Leanne asked desperately. ‘I’ve got friends I can borrow money from.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Joe protested. He looked at Graham, who had said nothing for several minutes.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Graham.

  Joe sat back and stared at Graham.

  Leanne too appeared startled. ‘It’ll take a couple of days for me to get the cash but I will give you more money.’

  Graham handed Leanne the envelope cont
aining the money. ‘I’m not doing it for the money,’ he said.

  Joe blinked. ‘You’re not?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ Graham looked at him steadily. ‘There’s more to it than the money.’ He picked up the second envelope from the table. ‘I’ll take this to Kyoul. It’ll be a few days before I can get to the hospital again. I’ve got supported study tomorrow when school finishes, and another football session on Wednesday evening. But I’ll go on Thursday afternoon. We can meet on Friday and I’ll tell you how I got on. I’ve got time to see you after our football training.’

  Leanne looked as though she might cry again. She swallowed a few times, then she leaned over and touched Graham on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Joe asked as he and Graham left the GOMA. ‘There’s more to it than the money?’

  ‘I didn’t tell you this,’ said Graham. ‘Yesterday when I spoke to Kyoul in the hospital I saw his chest and arms . . .’ He frowned and looked at Joe. ‘He’d been tortured. I mean, like, really tortured. It keeps coming into my mind. I go to all those action movies and spy thrillers, and you see things on telly, but I’ve never met anyone who has actually been tortured. It was – was . . .’ Graham ran out of words. He experienced again the slipping, sliding feeling he’d felt inside when he’d looked at Kyoul’s body and raised his gaze to his eyes. Seen the flayed, fearful look, the shadows in their depths.

  ‘Scary,’ said Joe.

  ‘Terrifying. And – and close. That’s what’s most scary. This happened in central Europe. I mean, my mum and dad have been on holiday there. It was the same as here practically. The people lived the way we do. Normal. And then it all changed. And people did things to each other. I don’t know why but they did. Ordinary people. It was ordinary people, like neighbours, who did that to Kyoul.’

  ‘My dad says that war changes people.’

  ‘I also read up about refugees on the Internet,’ said Graham. ‘One website showed children trying to live in bombed-out buildings. It gave you facts on human rights abuses in some countries. No wonder people try to escape. Some of them are doctors and teachers and they’re not allowed to work when they get here. Their life is just a big fat zero.’