The Invisible Crowd

by Ellen Wiles

  ‘No no, Joe, I just didn’t expect – and Nina! Have you two been introduced, then?’

  ‘We have now. Can we come in?’ Nina asked.

  The next morning Yonas woke disoriented, and stared fixedly at the image of a sailing boat painted roughly in watercolour for some moments, before remembering. Yes: he’d put that picture up for Molly in the spare room, a month or so ago, and had longed for a quick lie down on this bed, but didn’t think it was appropriate. Now he had slept all night in it, and it was undoubtedly the most comfortable he’d ever been in. He closed his eyes and snuggled his cheek back down into the soft pillow, its smooth pillowcase scented with fresh leaves. He must have drifted off again, because when he opened his eyes the sun was blasting through the window. He sat bolt upright, and swung his legs out of bed. Birdsong trickled in from the garden. Fresh pink towels were neatly folded on a chair. He peeked out of the bedroom door to see the bathroom door open, grabbed a towel and slipped in.

  The shower was a huge walk-in space, with a shower head the size of a dinner plate that distributed the steaming water perfectly, strongly and evenly, unlike the sputtering stream of the warehouse shower which ran onto the bathroom floor and sprayed all over the toilet. There was a shower gel called Eden’s Delight that contained botanical extracts like rosehip and white berry. He smothered himself in it, until every inch of his skin bubbled, and made himself get out after what felt like an acceptable ten minutes. He felt renewed, refreshed, alive – and ravenous.

  Once he’d dressed, he walked down to the kitchen, hoping it wasn’t rude to ask for something for breakfast. He was pleased to see that Nina was still there, her hair wet and tied up in a knot, laying out cutlery. Molly was chopping fruit.

  ‘Good morning!’ Molly sang out. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  They all sat down to eat together: muesli packed with nuts and raisins with fresh chopped banana and honey on top, and toast with butter and marmalade with real bits of orange, hot, sweet tea and fruit salad with berries and grapes, which they ate to peaceful waves of classical music on the radio. Yonas tried to savour every bite, knowing it was quite possible he would never enjoy any meal so much again for the rest of his life.

  Nina handed him a piece of notepaper with phone numbers written on it; she said she’d already tracked down the names of a couple of places, including somewhere called the Refugee Legal Centre. ‘They assured me you can get free asylum advice without being tied to anything,’ she said. ‘Obviously it’s completely up to you if you’d like to pursue it, but Mum and I would be happy to support you if you do.’

  He glanced at Molly, but she didn’t show any signs of vexation. Had she suspected him of being illegal all along?

  ‘The landline in the hall is all yours, Joe,’ Molly said, as she cleared the table. ‘Do try those numbers, and if nothing works out, we’ll find you somewhere else, okay?’

  He tried Emil’s number first, and this time he got through. ‘Professor!’ Emil said, sounding as if he were reclining in a hammock wearing sunglasses and took calls from Yonas all the time. He said he had stayed the night at his friend Adil’s place in Wandsworth, but that his friend Jean had just moved into an empty house in Brixton with five other guys, so he was moving in there later. ‘I can ask if you can join if you want?’

  ‘Yes!’ Yonas said. ‘Please. That sounds amazing. But… I am not sure if I understand. What happens when the owners come back?’

  ‘Maybe they never come! Jean says house has been empty for more than six month, so that means anybody has right to live there. Until they get evicted, but that could be long time. Finder is keeper. You know what, I actually love those police for raiding warehouse, or I would not even know about this place! Only thing each person have to pay will be fifty pounds per month for bills and costs like cleaning stuff, shared food, TV. Can you believe?’

  ‘Not really. When will you find out if I can join?’

  ‘I will go there in a couple hours. Then I call you.’

  Yonas nearly bounded back into the kitchen. ‘Great news – I think I have got a place to live with a friend!’ he announced. ‘I might not even need to call those hostels.’ Still, he was relieved when Molly insisted he stay on at her house until he was absolutely sure he’d got a bed. ‘Is it okay if I make one more call?’ he asked.

  Back in the hall, he dialled Bin Man Joe’s number. Please pick up, he whispered into the receiver. It rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. Then went dead. Yonas stared at Molly’s leaf-patterned wallpaper. What if Gebre had decided to leave finally, had met Bin Man Joe, got the directions, followed them, and turned up at the warehouse today, to find it swarming with police? Should he go there, now, just in case? But then he’d risk getting caught, and the chance of Gebre getting there in the near future seemed minuscule. He went back into the kitchen.

  ‘Want to help me dry?’ Nina called over from the sink, where she was washing up. She handed him the dishtowel and smiled. ‘Hey, I was thinking, do you need a phone?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got an old mobile in a drawer back home – basic as they come, but it works fine I think, and I never use it any more. You’re welcome to it. It’s pay-as-you-go.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, nearly dropping one of Molly’s willow-patterned bowls. A mobile phone had seemed like a totally unobtainable luxury until now.

  ‘Of course! I’ll go back home later and dig it out for you. Look, I’ve got a while until I need to get Clara from nursery today, and I thought I might go into town to an exhibition – Portrait Gallery, maybe. Mum’s busy, but if you fancied joining me, you’d be welcome?’

  Inside the tall, white, pristine space, moving silently behind Nina from one blown-up photograph to the next, Yonas felt like a pilgrim gazing at icons. One depicted a young woman with turquoise eyes in an emerald-green headscarf, standing by a faded mosque door, who seemed to be watching him, secretly amused, her lips pursed in a slight smile. She looked white. She must be, with those eyes. He supposed there were some white Muslims. Had this woman met a Muslim man and converted? What would that have been like? Would her parents have disowned her? He noticed she had a miniature dimple on one cheek, just like Sarama, and he remembered gently running his finger over that indentation. He bit his lip and moved on.

  The next image showed a clique of Vietnamese girls in identical blue and white uniforms, one of them concentrating on typing something into a pink phone. Would Nina really give him one soon? If he could only get the number to Gebre, he could call any time. Next, a graceful old lady, with soft waves of ivory hair held back with a comb as she looked downwards at something in her lap: maybe a book or a photograph? A gang of Cossack girls at cadet school wearing camouflage and steel-capped army boots, wielding AK-47s. Two little boys on horseback at an Irish country fair, oozing excitement. About twenty child prisoners locked in a single cell in Burundi, waiting, waiting, under a dim, yellow light. He wondered how many of them were still there, still alive. It was hard to believe he and Gebre could have been in prison, still, if they hadn’t broken out. So many multicoloured lives on these walls, he thought – and yet every single person was at some point just a naked, crying baby, a blank page of experience ready to be written on.

  Yonas walked around the exhibition again, more quickly, taking in the contrasts, and imagining what would happen if the people in the photographs all suddenly came to life and stepped out of the frames. He glanced over at Nina, but she seemed absorbed; she obviously didn’t expect to talk about it with him, at least until afterwards. He wondered what she and the other Londoners in the gallery were thinking as they processed silently around. Were they just feeling smug that their lives were so much easier than those of the people in most of the images? And how many other asylum seekers got taken around art galleries like this? If it wasn’t for Nina, he would just have assumed a place like this was prohibitively expensive for someone like him. It was hard to believe that most of the gallery was totally free. If only he could tell Gebre.

  ‘I’m so
glad we did this – thanks for coming with me,’ Nina said, after they’d finished, and stood on the gallery escalator, moving up past paintings of severe-looking monarchs with what looked like huge white lace frills around their necks. She followed his gaze. ‘Ruffs have got to come back into fashion sometime soon,’ she said. ‘Scarves are so dated.’

  ‘Those white neck things, you mean?’ he asked. ‘They would look good on you. You could wear them with jeans, for a more modern look.’

  ‘Well, there’s no way I’d try to bring corsets and hoop skirts back, that’s for sure!’ she said. ‘Ruffs, though, they’ve got potential. But then this is London – even if I took myself to a fancy dress shop to hire one, I doubt anyone would give me a second glance! So, which photos did you like best? My favourite was that old Haitian woman totally rocking that scarlet dress with its puff sleeves and purple belt – defying the poverty around her.’

  Yonas agreed that was a striking image, though he didn’t see why it should be unusual for women of any age to dress vibrantly in the midst of poverty. But he supposed Molly always wore subtle grey and blue colours. Maybe all older women in the UK were expected to dress as if they were fading away into foggy air. He glanced at Nina slyly. ‘I expect you looked at that picture of the teacher in the Malawian school and thought of me.’

  ‘No, I didn’t! I mean, you’re from the same continent I guess, but…’

  ‘Actually, our revolutionary school was even more basic,’ he said. ‘The picture of that girl with the red hair riding on a horse, you know the one I mean? She reminded me of you.’

  ‘Oh that one! Yes, that was lovely. I wish my childhood had been all free and magical like that, riding in dappled woods. The only time I tried pony trekking it rained and I got the evil horse who bit the other horses’ bums until it got to the front and then tried to throw me! Still, it was a happy enough childhood… until Dad died.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Yonas said.

  ‘No, no – you of all people know what that’s like.’

  When they got to the café at the top, Yonas glimpsed the view: a spectacular cityscape looking right across at the Houses of Parliament.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ Nina said, ‘I’m just going to pop to the loo.’

  Yonas waited, transfixed by the sight of Big Ben, almost within his reach, like a toy clock. ‘Can I help you?’ a waitress said sharply, casting her eyes down to his ripped jeans and scuffed shoes. The tone with which she inflected the word help meant that he obviously wasn’t the kind of person who deserved any from such quarters.

  ‘I’m waiting for someone,’ he said, and retreated further into the corridor until Nina returned. Following her in, he couldn’t help smiling at the waitress’s perplexed stare as she processed the fact that they were together.

  Nina sat at a table by the window. ‘I’ll have a cappuccino – what about you?’

  ‘Same, please.’ Yonas gazed through the glass, trying not to seem overly excited about the imminent prospect of drinking a real coffee again. He wondered whether Quentin would get his chance to represent people in that Parliament building. It must be an amazing place to go into work every morning. He wondered if Eritrea would ever have a democracy whereby elected representatives from different political parties got to sit down and debate issues with each other. Nina couldn’t be seriously considering leaving a man who worked there and befriending a broke, black, illegal, now homeless guy from a country that barely anybody here had even heard of. Pretty much the only experience they seemed to share was the death of a parent. Nina would have more in common with Gebre – at least they were both artists.

  ‘Do you do photography, as well as painting?’ he asked.

  ‘No – well, not proper photography. Everyone is an amateur now, aren’t they? Which reminds me, I’ll definitely dig out my old phone for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, embarrassed, as if he’d just reminded her that he was the kind of person who had never even owned a camera, never mind a phone with a camera, if that was what she was suggesting. ‘I really like your painting that is hanging in Molly’s living room,’ he said. ‘She showed it to me the first time I went there.’

  ‘Oh, did she? It’s from my art school days. I don’t really paint like that any more, but I can’t persuade her to take it down! I’m glad you like it though.’

  The two cappuccinos arrived, sprinkled with cocoa heart shapes. Yonas sipped his. It was hot and bitter, and almost as delicious as he’d hoped, and it reminded him sharply of his mother. He closed his eyes, to concentrate on the sensation, then opened them, fearing he would look odd. ‘My friend Gebre, the one who came to the UK with me, he is an artist as well,’ he said.

  ‘Oh really? What kind?’

  ‘A painter, also. He used to do portraits, sometimes – he would love to see this gallery. Hopefully he will come to London soon and I can show him.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ Nina said reassuringly, though she could have no idea.

  They emerged out of the gallery into a mild, bright afternoon, with little white clouds gambolling across the sky like lambs. ‘How about we ditch the Tube and walk?’ Nina asked. They weaved through the masses in Covent Garden, past theatres with children lined up outside, through the hubbub of the cobbled market. An entirely gold man, skin glistening, stood stock-still while people chucked coins in a hat by his feet. A scruffy busker crooned effortfully and strummed a guitar. A man on stilts juggled a rainbow array of balls. They wended their way through the narrow streets of Soho where Emil and his mates loved to go out, past porn shops and fancy restaurants and jazz bars, past rickshaws and clusters of early afternoon drinkers lingering outside pubs sipping beers. They crossed over Oxford Street, seething with shoppers, then strolled through some wider, grander streets, and up through Regent’s Park, detouring through a rose garden and along verdant promenades. Today, Yonas decided, London was undoubtedly the most beautiful, exciting and vibrant tapestry of a city in the world.

  Chapter 12: Meg

  LYING ASYLUM SEEKER CAN STAY HERE – BECAUSE SHE HAD TWO CHILDREN BY AN HIV ALCOHOLIC

  Double macchiato, please. No sugar. Actually, one sweetener.

  So, I still haven’t really met Yonas Kelati. I did write a piece about him, but that was before I even knew his name. Yes, that piece. I had nothing against him personally – like I said, I didn’t even know him. I was just doing what I thought was the right thing. But, oh my fricking God, I don’t think I’ve ever wished harder that a handful of words could be burned and eviscerated from the internet. Even if they made my career.

  Here’s how it happened. Nina, that’s my best friend from school, was having a really tough time with her marriage, which I never saw coming. I thought she’d got it all sorted. I’m not married myself – never even managed a relationship for longer than six months – and, to be honest, I was pretty jealous of Nina for ages, before I realized what it was like for her.

  Quentin, her husband, is super-clever, not bad looking in a clean-cut kind of way, and he’s always had that sort of effervescent public schoolboy confidence and banter that’s irritatingly attractive. I first met him when I came to visit Nina at Oxford, just after they’d got together. Obviously I took the mick out of his deck shoes, but secretly I thought he was a catch. He was only Nina’s second boyfriend – neither of us had had much luck with boys before uni. We were called Laurel and Hardy at school – I was overweight and popping out of my school shirts, while she was so skinny her tights would go all wrinkly. We weren’t exactly popular. Then when Nina’s dad died, she got even more introverted, became borderline anorexic, and wanted to avoid the other kids completely, so we used to hang out together in the art room at lunchtimes, even though I had zero artistic talent (never, ever, pick me for Pictionary). But back to Quentin coming on the scene. So, he was really into politics, just like I was – I even studied it at King’s – but Nina had zero interest in it. So I felt like he had more in common with me – but when Nina told me how supportive h
e was in helping her deal with her issues, I figured I should just get over myself and be glad for her.

  Anyway, after uni finished, we both found ourselves in jobs we hated. I applied for the BBC but didn’t get in and ended up doing accountancy. (It was just supposed to be a summer job, but for some reason they asked me to stay on – I’ve never been so well-paid or so bored in all my life!) Nina’s degree was maths and philosophy; she’d always said she’d do an art foundation course after that, but instead she totally sold out and went into management consultancy. I mean, all Oxford students get swamped by bribery dinners and drinks from blue-chip firms – but it wasn’t just that for Nina, it was Quentin, who told her that being an artist was a ‘pipe dream’, and convinced her she’d be happier just doing it for fun and getting a ‘real job’. And she waltzed into one of the top firms, thanks to her maths brain. Out of everyone I know, only Nina could rattle off an answer on the spot to a ridiculous question like How many postboxes are there in London? and draw a perfect postbox with the street scene around it at the same time. (Not that she did that, as far as I know, but she definitely could have done.) Of course, she despised the job as soon as she started it.

  So a few years later they got engaged, and Nina and I went out for a drink to celebrate. She said she didn’t want a big wedding and asked whether I thought she should put her foot down. I told her not to be ridiculous, just to go with the flow and enjoy the attention. We talked about the rites of passage, and where our old ambitions had gone, and drifted into the usual moaning zone about our jobs. Then she said, ‘Look, if you hate accountancy so much, why not just quit? You always wanted to be a political journalist. Get an internship, or just write some freelance stuff and pitch it – give it a go before it’s too late!’

  And I thought, She’s right. She’s bloody right! But then I said to her, ‘Well, why don’t you do the same? Do that art foundation course – follow your dream?’ I didn’t think she actually would. But she did – we both did.