by Chris Simms
‘What did it say?’
‘A kind of diary entry. It appears to have been written by some poor soul who’d gone overboard – from a ship out at sea. Along with a load of yellow ducks, by the look of it. It described how this person, and a few other survivors, fashioned a raft from wooden pallets floating around them. Twenty-one people, standing in water up to their knees.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Alice murmured as Phillip reached for a rasher of bacon.
‘Oh, come on,’ Amanda admonished, cutting into an egg. ‘It was off the internet. It won’t be genuine, for goodness sake.’
‘How do you know?’ Alice asked.
‘Well,’ she widened her eyes. ‘Abandoned at sea? Not in this day and age. They’d have been spotted. The ship would have reported them missing or something.’
‘Mum, what if they were stowaways? If the crew found them while they were miles out at sea . . .’ Aware Holly was beside her, she stopped speaking, preferring to let the other two adults absorb the implications of her comment.
‘Phillip, what do you think?’ Amanda asked.
His bottom lip turned down. ‘Hard to say. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out to be some sort of marketing gimmick by the duck manufacturer.’
The phone started to ring and Amanda picked it up from the table beside her. ‘Hello? No, it’s her mum. Yes, she is. One moment.’ She cupped a hand over the receiver. ‘It’s Martin, from that refugee place.’
Refugees Are People, Alice thought. The charity organisation she’d been helping out at now for over two years. ‘Martin, hi. Everything OK?’
‘Sorry to ring you this early on a Monday, Alice. I’d take care of it myself, but . . .’
‘What’s up?’
‘It’s Nathaniel. You know – the gentlemen from Zimbabwe who’s been living in the Moss Side flats?’
‘Yes, I know who you mean. Nathaniel Musoso.’
‘The police picked him up in a distressed state early this morning. He was wandering the streets. He’s been self-harming. Lacerations to his forearms.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘They dropped him off at Sale General. He’s been admitted back onto the mental health unit.’
Alice bowed her head. They’d been working with Nathaniel for over four months, offering support as his claim for asylum was slowly processed. Sometimes he seemed to be coping fine. Then memories of what had happened in Africa returned to torment him.
‘A nurse called here just now. He’s asking for—’
‘Sudoku.’ Alice completed the sentence for him, thinking about the informal arrangement between the hospital and the charity. When an asylum seeker with no friends or family ended up on the ward, a member of RAP would go in and offer support that could involve anything from bringing in supplies to arranging contact with community groups originally from that person’s country. With the pressure the nurses were under, it sometimes included helping out with non-clinical paperwork, too. ‘Rolling tobacco as well. Am I right?’
‘Spot on. Is there any way you could . . .’
‘Leave it with me. I’ll take some things in for him.’
‘Thanks so much, Alice. Keep any receipts, won’t you?’
‘Will do. I’ll call to say how he’s doing.’ She hung up and looked guiltily at Holly, knowing how her daughter hated it when this happened. ‘Mummy’s got to pop out, sweetie. I won’t be long. Is that OK?’
Holly’s eyes dropped to the table and she started sliding her spoon back and forth.
‘Is that OK?’
Holly gave a faint nod. No, it’s not, Alice thought sadly, turning to Phillip as she stood. ‘A client’s shown up at Sale General’s MHU. Nathaniel Musoso?’
Phillip looked blank.
‘He’s been admitted before. Are you due to do a ward round soon?’
He nodded.
‘Great. Look, I’ll check what meds they’ve got him on. But last time he was in, I don’t believe he was properly assessed. Maybe you could take a look at him? You know – perhaps a Hopkins Symptom checklist? He’s definitely got post-traumatic stress disorder.’
He raised his eyebrows and fixed her with a look.
Hastily, she corrected herself. ‘Well, in my opinion, he has. You know how busy the nurses are in there.’
He glanced at his watch then folded the paper. ‘Alice, you shouldn’t fret.’ A smile was playing at his lips. ‘There is an assessment system in place. The nurses are fully qualified.’
‘I know,’ she said, suddenly aware she was offering advice to a consultant psychiatrist when she had yet to qualify as a counsellor. ‘I’m just saying . . . well, you know. If you can give him some time, I’d really appreciate it. He’s been through so much.’
Phillip had turned back to his plate. ‘I’m sure that won’t be a problem.’
‘Thank you. Sorry to rush off like this, Mum. Are you OK looking after Holly for a bit?’
‘Yes.’
Phillip gestured to Amanda. ‘Try some of the dry-cure bacon, it really is delicious.’
‘Hello, Mary,’ Alice smiled, walking across the lobby to the security desk. ‘Here to see Nathaniel Musoso. He was admitted earlier this morning.’
‘Ah, yes,’ the middle-aged lady replied, examining the computer screen. ‘He was. Guy – can you do the check, please?’
Beside her, a large man with the word Security stitched onto the breast of his dark blue jumper was flicking through the Sun. With a hint of reluctance, he looked up, saw Alice and quickly stood. ‘Morning,’ he mumbled, a blush creeping beneath the black skin of his face.
‘Guy.’ Alice tried not to smile at the man’s futile attempt to mask the fact he fancied her. She racked her brains for anything she’d recently read about Manchester City in the local press. ‘Is that Wright-Phillips a good signing, then?’
The man’s eyes lit up. ‘The prodigal son returns! Hughes has signed us a player there.’
She held the bag open. ‘Just a Sudoku puzzle book, some tobacco and papers and a bottle of Ribena.’
‘Yup,’ he replied, after glancing in. ‘You’re all right.’
Alice signed her name on the form, then Mary pressed the button that opened the outer doors. Alice stepped through, hearing them clamp shut behind her. She walked the twelve feet to the inner doors and pressed the buzzer, hating every second she was trapped in the airlock.
A long-haired nursing assistant wearing faded jeans and a purple T-shirt was at the desk just beyond the doors. Twenty-two years old, at most, Alice thought, buzzing again. He spotted her looking at him through the glass, reached under the desk and released the lock. The doors slid apart.
‘Morning,’ Alice said thankfully, quickly stepping through. Down the corridor to her left she could hear noise from a television. Most of the patients would be in there by now, she thought, slumped in soft chairs, eyes glued to the screen. A sharp, salty smell lingered in the air. Bacon. Cooked hours ago and then left in the heated food trolleys, slowly stewing in its own juice.
‘Hi, there,’ he replied. ‘Who are you seeing?’
‘Nathaniel Musoso.’ Alice glanced at the nurse’s room immediately to her right. As usual, the door was firmly shut. She pictured them all inside, desperately trying to prepare patient files ready for the ward rounds the next day. ‘Busy night?’
‘Better believe it,’ the assistant replied. ‘That Nathaniel was kicking off big time. We’ve got another in the isolation room and two more are on their way in. That’ll be us full, again.’
An overweight man of about fifty was shuffling down the corridor towards them. Alice caught sight of the unlit cigarette in his hand.
‘Can you let us out?’
‘Hang on, Tony,’ the assistant replied.
‘You said that twenty minutes ago. I need a smoke.’
This is the disaster, Alice thought, of the government’s recent ban on smoking in public places. Patients on mental health wards were notorious for smoking like chimneys – an
d now they had to get a member of staff to accompany them out for every single cigarette.
‘I’m sorry,’ the assistant replied. ‘Someone will pop out with you soon.’
‘Now! I want to go now!’
‘Tony, do you think you should be going out at all, if you’re all worked up?’
‘I’m not worked up. I wasn’t worked up. It’s you who’s doing it to me. Just fucking let us out, will you?’
‘Tony, you want me to write this up? Ward round’s tomorrow and this can go in your file. It’s not a problem for me.’
‘I just need a smoke.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Please.’
The nursing assistant looked at Alice with a triumphant glint in his eye. ‘He’s in bay three, I think.’
‘Thanks.’ Alice took the corridor which led straight ahead, past the women’s section. The threat of a write-up, she thought. Amazing the effect that can have. Phillip – or whichever psychiatrist doing the rounds – would periodically sweep in and review each patient’s notes from the previous few days. Compliance with taking medication. Ability to get on with others. Willingness to eat and wash. And any episodes that weren’t in keeping with what the world beyond the sliding doors deemed as acceptable behaviour. Like talking to imaginary people or answering back to those in authority.
One by one, each patient would then be ushered in to a room where Phillip and the care coordinator would be waiting. The system confused her. It was the nursing assistants who had by far the most actual face-to-face contact with the patients. Yet their input was reduced to a few observations which, depending on time pressures, the qualified nurses may, or may not, add to the patient’s file.
She continued along the corridor, passing three bays on her right, each of which held six beds. Prints of famous paintings were screwed to the wall at regular intervals. Constable’s The Hay Wain, Monet’s Water Lilies, Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow. Shame, Alice thought, that they wouldn’t put up anything by Van Gogh. A lot of his best work, she reflected, had been done while inside a mental institution. A few fragments of plaster on the floor caught her eye and she spotted damage to the wall. Something had been thrown at it pretty hard.
The corridor turned left, past the stretch of single-occupancy rooms reserved for those too vulnerable to share with others. At its midpoint the corridor became the men’s half of the ward. A few more single rooms and the corridor turned left again, leading past the three men’s bays. After that, the corridor turned left a final time to complete the square. The TV room, dining area and visitor rooms were all on the final stretch of corridor which led back to the nurses’ desk and the doors to the outside world.
Alice was passing the final single-occupancy room for men when the door opened. She glimpsed a thin, hollow-cheeked youth propped up in the bed, scabs covering his bald head.
The woman closed the door and turned round. Her arms were at her sides, and for a moment Alice wasn’t sure if she was a nurse or a visitor. Then one hand moved, allowing Alice a glimpse of the identity card and panic alarm attached to her belt.
‘Hi, there. I was wondering where Nathaniel Musoso is?’
The woman pointed. ‘Bay three. He’s calm, now.’
‘Is he on meds?’
She nodded. ‘Sedatives and some antipsychotics.’
‘Antipsychotics? He wasn’t psychotic, was he?’
‘He was hearing voices. Engaging with them.’
‘That’s—’ Alice stopped. That’s not psychotic behaviour, she wanted to say. Where he comes from, it’s normal to address your dead ancestors, especially in times of distress. Too late now. ‘Bay three, thanks.’
She found him sitting up in bed, bandages covering both forearms. ‘Nathaniel,’ she announced, pulling up a chair.
He stared back with deadened eyes.
‘Got your Sudoku puzzles. And some tobacco, too. Is this type OK? Samson?’
‘Thank you.’
‘And Ribena. None of that sugar-free crap, either. You’d like some?’
He gave a faint smile. ‘Crap. You should not use such language, Alice.’
She adopted a Mary Poppins voice. ‘You prefer it when I speak like a lady?’
‘That is better, yes,’ he nodded, smile taking hold properly.
‘Well, I’m a northern lass, Nathaniel. So bollocks to that.’ Grinning, she added some juice to the plastic beaker of water on his bedside table. Then she turned to face him, taking his hand in both of hers. ‘What happened, Nathaniel?’
He raised his other hand and rubbed at the greying curls on his head, sleeve sliding back as he did so. The bandages went right up to his elbow. ‘My application to stay here has been turned down. They will call me back to Dallas Court, Alice.’
She thought about the anonymous-looking reporting centre tucked away among other windowless units on an industrial estate in Salford Quays.
‘And when I go,’ Nathaniel added mournfully, ‘I will not come back out.’
Ten
They approached the ticket barrier at Liverpool Lime Street, warrant cards at the ready.
‘All right there, lads.’ The ticket officer waved them through. Jon heard the way the man’s tongue rolled over his ‘l’s. Scouse, he thought. Bloody horrible accent.
The signs for the taxi rank directed them off to the left. They crossed the shiny floor and emerged from a side exit to a line of black cabs bumper to bumper in a tight turning circle.
‘Reliance House, Water Street, please,’ Jon announced as they climbed into the vehicle at the front of the queue.
The driver gave a knowing nod, eyes on them in the rear-view mirror. ‘Business, is it?’
‘Yup,’ Jon replied, trying to find his seat belt as they pulled away.
‘You don’t look like the usual crowd outside that place. Not with ties on.’
The taxi swung out on to the main road, the towering row of Roman columns which formed the front of St George’s Hall dominating the view. The cab then turned down a slightly sloping side street. They passed another grandiose building, this one with a dome similar in style, Jon thought, to Manchester’s central library. He reflected on the fortunes of the two cities – the factories of Manchester making the cotton and the port of Liverpool controlling its shipment. Until, that is, tens of thousands of navvies had been recruited to dig out the Manchester Ship Canal. The cities had never been the friendliest of neighbours, that was for sure.
The road continued on a downward slope and Jon spotted the tarnished copper birds perched atop the Liver building up ahead. Beyond it, he glimpsed water. The Mersey, its pinched surface sliding sideways, a relentless flow of silver emptying into the Irish sea.
‘Reliance House.’ The taxi pulled to a halt.
After collecting a receipt, Jon climbed out, leaving the door open for Rick as he turned to examine the building on the opposite side of the road. Its anonymous-looking front lacked the Gothic styling of the Liver building or stately appearance of the other buildings which lined the street. Stone steps led up to the main doors, above which chunky metallic lettering spelled out Reliance House. The queue of people stretched down to the pavement.
Skirting round them, Jon and Rick stepped through the glass doors and into a lobby area dominated by two airport-style metal detectors. The smell of carpet-cleaning fluid mixed with the aroma created when too many people were crammed into too small a space. They approached the white-shirted security guards, warrant cards in their hands.
‘All right, mate?’ Jon announced.
A guard glanced at them suspiciously. ‘Yes?’
‘We’re here to see a Derek Marlow.’ Jon held his ID up. ‘He knows we’re coming.’
They were waved through a side gate and directed up some more steps to an inner desk, where a couple of other officials were chatting. One was wearing white rubber gloves with the words Front Desk written across the back. They introduced themselves and, as one of the men made a phone call, Jon examined the headline of the poster pinned to
the door which led into a large waiting area.
Ali* didn’t give his real name during his interview.
Giving false information to us can result in your arrest and imprisonment.
The remainder of the poster was made up of a series of panels, each one filled with words of a different language. The asterisk featured after every first word and Jon searched out the English small print at the poster’s base.
*This name does not refer to an actual person who is claiming asylum.
A minute later a door marked Staff Only opened and a tall man with greying brown hair stepped out. He was wearing grey trousers, a white shirt and a navy tie. An identity card was attached to a red ribbon around his neck.
‘DI Spicer, DS Saville?’
Only a faint Liverpool accent, Jon thought with relief as he stepped forward with a hand out. ‘Morning. I’m Jon Spicer. Is it Derek Marlow?’
‘Yes.’
‘My colleague, Rick Saville.’
Once they’d all shaken hands he turned round, swiped his card through a reader to the side of the door and opened it up.
‘There are locks throughout this place, so I’d better lead the way. We’re heading straight up the stairs.’
‘Is it always this busy?’ asked Rick.
He grunted. ‘When we moved into these offices, they were considered palatial. But the numbers just keep going up. We’ll have outgrown this place pretty soon.’
‘Why the increase?’
‘I wish I knew,’ he replied wearily, ‘then we could stop it.’ He glanced over his shoulder and gave a wink.
‘Too many countries can’t take care of their own, surely,’ Jon said. ‘So they come looking for a better life here.’
‘Actually,’ Marlow replied, coming to a halt and considering something for a second. ‘You won’t hear me saying this in the main office, but you want a more accurate reason?’
