We shouldn’t have come here. No, they haven’t . . . Oh. Yes. Good. Thank goodness for that. At least the elephant’s still here; I thought for a moment they’d ditched it too. Massive big moth-eaten thing. Sad as well. Sir Roger used to perform in Buffalo Bill’s Victorian circus, until one day the indignities and the small, ridiculous podium on to which he had to climb got all too much. He ran, trumpeting for his life, all the way down Sauchiehall Street. They shot him, of course. If you look closely you can still see the bullet holes, the ones the taxidermist didn’t manage to buff and plump out.
I’d said I’d meet Abdi by the elephant. Only because you can’t really miss it. Oh God I’m nervous. Will he think I’m making fun of him, like saying I’ll meet you in the jungle? Do they have elephants in Somalia? I have no idea, no idea at all what I’m doing and I feel so daft. I feel thick and slow and ugly. Standing here, by the elephant, I feel faintly colonial too.
I also feel shocked and mean. If I can expel my anger on to the museum, maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe Kelvingrove will work its distractive magic after all. On the way here, I bumped into my neighbour Naomi, and her girls. A Thursday, she was wearing jeans, yet she still had her work expression on. You know, that clouded furrow of a mind constrained, impatient to be elsewhere. We smiled our hellos and she was almost past me before I said, ‘Day off then is it?’ Like that: burble burble staccato-rush.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Just working from home. And shopping,’ she grimaced, holding up a damply darkened paper bag. Then we did that little two-step, where you’re half-past on your way, but lingering on the actual point of execution. That next step, the decisive one, is poised and raring to go, and yet the close proximity of words and bodies makes it somehow rude to leave. I swayed fractionally and said, ‘No au pair today?’
‘No,’ replied Naomi. And I thought she was going to leave it like that, I honestly did, and how could you recover from an exchange so blunt? I’d have to hurry round a corner when I saw her next.
‘No,’ she repeated, shifting a little closer. Her girls beamed and burbled. Lucy, the elder, held on to the pram while the baby jettisoned a pink rabbit. It landed at my feet, but bending to retrieve it might have broken the spell because Naomi was coming ever nearer and her face had changed. She was there, in the moment, and there was a visible softening of her expression – to me, I think, to her confidante.
‘Gone.’ She lowered her voice. ‘One letter from the Home Office, and she’s off like a bloody shot. No notice, nothing.’
‘The Home Office?’
Naomi withdrew slightly. ‘She told me everything was fine. And I mean, you always pay these girls cash in hand, don’t you? They prefer it that way.’
‘Do you mean the tax man? Was it from the tax man?’
‘No. Rula told me she was a student, but it was all just a pack of lies. She was an illegal bloody immigrant. Can you imagine? I mean Duncan’s hoping to get called to the Bar soon.’ Naomi held up her hand. ‘I know, I know. I should have checked. But her English was good, she had references.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, that’s me back to paying agency fees, and there’s a two week wait before I get another.’ A shrug. ‘What can you do? So – we’re playing offices with Mummy today, aren’t we, Lucy?’
Lucy had retrieved her sister’s rabbit, but was refusing to give it back.
‘Don’t do that, darling. Give Flora back her bunny.’
‘No. S’mine.’ Lucy ducked from her mother’s reach, her arm glancing off Naomi’s paper bag which ripped immediately, in slow parting waves. A pile of fish slid to the pavement.
‘Oh for fucks – Lucy! How many times –’
‘Here, here. I’ve got it.’ I tried to scoop up some of the fish, but it kept slithering away.
‘Christ. Jesus fu – Just leave it, will you? Deborah! Please. Just leave it.’
Naomi’s face had bricked-up again. Furious, bright bricks. ‘We’ll just have sandwiches for dinner, won’t we, girls? Mm, Flora? Will we just call Daddy at his work and tell him we’re having sandwiches?’
Flora’s cheeks were gathering momentum, quivering wetly, and I knew she was going to scream. So we each mumbled stuff about ‘having to get on’, and off we went, Naomi stepping over the puddle of fish and into her house; me to do my mentoring, my badge that I am a responsible and caring adult. I’d watched a stranger disintegrate and had gone to bed. In the fishscales and dried-up rainbows, I kept seeing Rula’s face. Of course I knew all the time that her name was Rula, but it makes it simpler to pretend you don’t.
There’s Abdi now. Punctual. I can see him coming through the crowd. It’s not hard. There are not that many tall black men in Glasgow, and there are none at all at Kelvingrove. He walks with a sloped elegance. An italic, a dark defined slant through a sea of similarity. All those other faces I can see, in their bobbing and pointing bodies, all of them are comfortably anonymous. If they choose not to stand out or make a fuss, they can. Does Abdi feel conspicuous? Like when you’ve had a new haircut and it’s much too short and you have no hair left behind which you can hide?
He does look worried. And he’s got that rucksack again. Bright red. He had it when we met, a wee lost schoolboy. Long concave face. Quick, brisk licking of his lips, his eyes scanning the displays.
I am the host. I step forward.
‘Abdi,’ I call. ‘Hi.’
He comes towards me, smiling.
‘Hello, Deborah.’
His accent is melodic, not the clipped guttural tones I associate with Africa. It’s nice, how he says my name with the emphasis on the second syllable. I sound exotic in his mouth.
‘Hi,’ I say again. ‘How are you?’
‘I am well.’
‘Good. Good.’
He looks at me expectantly.
‘ Well – do you want to go for a coffee first, or have a wander about?’
‘A wonder?’
‘A wander – to move about, to roam?’
His smile widens. Generous.
‘I know this. Yes. We can wonder. Nice elephant.’ He nods at Sir Roger, and at the baby elephant nestled by his side. I’m not sure where that little one came from, but I begin to launch into the sorry circus tale, gabbling like a hyper-historian, when he interrupts me.
‘No,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry?’
Abdi points to a little plaque in front of the display. Another new development. ‘No. This says that he came from zoo. Look.’
I look. The plaque also says he was put down after he got ill and started attacking zoo staff. So. Sir Roger was the villain of the piece. Well, I like my version better.
‘We have been to zoo in Edinburgh,’ says Abdi. ‘My church thought I would like it.’
‘And did you?’
‘I felt very at home.’
He’s laughing at me. His head dips sideways, and he’s smiling at his feet. Now I’m the conspicuous one, a beacon of flustered red.
We go first to the Scottish Colourists – one, because I want to take him up the marble staircase (and away from the damn elephant) and two, because I think, if the bright oranges and blues of Peploe and Cadell don’t impress him, then nothing will . . . I tail off. Wait for him to follow, but he’s gazing skywards. Grinning.
‘Glorious.’
‘Pardon?’
He frowns. ‘Is that the word? Glorious?’
Following his gaze. Seeing those ugly faces above us. ‘Glorious means, um, wonderful, I suppose. Happy and overpowering and . . . grand? You know, big, important – like the sunshine.’
I’m making sunburst gestures, painting circles with my hands. ‘Do you know that word: grand?’
Abdi laughs. ‘Yes, exactly. Glorious. Those faces. They are so full of . . . joy!’
I look again. Everywhere; at the light brightness of the chequered tiles, the new old shimmers. At the wrinkly grey hide and the giant heids.
‘Well. They’re certainly . . . big.’
I lead him up the staircase
, pretending I’m in a crinoline. There’s something Gone with the Wind-ish about these sweeping stairs. We get to the top, I turn left. Conscious he’s behind me, that I’m leading. The leaflets the Refugee Council gave me said that visiting places or learning stuff will make it easier to chat. I don’t think Abdi got the same leaflet. He is content to walk in silence, as if we’re in a library. But yes, the Colourists are gorgeous, the Impressionists divine. And I think he likes the Mackintosh stuff – I know I do. One of those wee pewter pitchers would look lovely on my dining table. Just one – I finger the glass case – I mean, would they miss it?
Now we’re in the Caledonian gallery. Lots of majestic braes and glens, a fair spattering of mighty stags, and everything worked in muddy ochre. All that’s missing is the haggis grazing on the hills. Haggi? Abdi’s scrutinising one of the good ones. Guthrie’s famous funeral scene: men in sombre black pressing down on their grief; the setting winter light a smear on the horizon. Tucked in a corner, two stiff chairs stand outside the cottage round which the assembled men are gathered – and it is all men. There’s no room for women at this Highland funeral. One stiff drape of black velvet hides the small coffin that rests between the chairs. But it’s the clench of the father; I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that before, how he holds himself so solid. How you do that at a funeral, when you’re the chief mourner and everyone’s pretending not to look, but they are, they’re attuned to every twitch and shift you make. The tiniest emission of breath is measured for tears. She’s so brave. She’s very . . . controlled when all the time you’re thinking, thinking I will never see this person again. I will never touch their face. They are in there, in that box in front of me and I will never hear them speak or hold them close or smell their hair. You’re almost calm with the knowledge. Well, I was. Your body has been bled and you function as part-ghost. And yet, at the same time, you’re giving thanks, your crumpled heart is so full of love that it pales your grief, makes it insignificant. You are saturated with love and you are deeply, deeply lost.
I blink. See Abdi raise his hand before the painting. His arm drifts closer, I think his open palm is going to skim the surface, but it doesn’t.
‘Hoi!’ shouts a man’s voice. ‘You canny touch the pictures.’ The curator scurries over, blazer flapping with importance. ‘Ho! You! Step away fae the wall.’
Gallery-gazers turn to stare. Abdi freezes.
‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘This gentleman’s with me. He didn’t –’
‘Will you tell him no to touch?’ repeats the man.
‘I did not touch your painting.’ Abdi will not make eye contact with the curator. It makes him look like he’s lying, but I know he’s not. I was right beside him; it was more like he was stroking the air in front of it.
‘Any mair of your nonsense and I’ll have to ask you to leave.’ The curator waggles his walkie-talkie at Abdi. He turns to me. ‘Keep him under control, eh?’
‘He’s not a dog.’ I jouk my face close to his red-rimmed nose. ‘And anyway, what d’you expect when you’ve got signs everywhere telling folk to “feel your paint”. I mean to say –’
‘That is confined to one specific area of the interpretation centre. And if folk canny tell the difference –’
Abdi moves between us. ‘Please. I am sorry I touch your painting.’
‘Right.’ The curator steps back a pace. ‘Right. Well, just see that it disny happen again, OK?’
‘Yes. OK.’
I wait until the curator’s out of earshot, until the gawkers have returned to their perusal of art as opposed to drama. ‘Why did you say that? You didn’t touch the painting.’
‘I know.’ Abdi eases his thumb behind the padded strap of his rucksack, transfers it from one shoulder to the other. Gives me a half-smile. His eyes glisten. ‘May we carry on, please?’
‘You want to go?’
‘I want to see other paintings.’
We walk on through the museum in silence, broken by me going, ‘That one’s nice,’ and him going, ‘Mm.’ Under my skin, my heart is going haywire. Maybe I shouldn’t be allowed out. Abdi won’t look the road I’m on – he can’t be that transfixed with the Sioux Ghost Dance Shirt. I blether on about it for a while, telling him about its origins and its repatriation, then we leave that room and move to the next. I’m suddenly conscious this must all seem greedy. Piles of stolen property – that’s what a lot of this is. I watch him gaze at all the faded glories. The Refugee Council folk tell you that you haven’t to pry, you mustn’t ask ‘leading questions’. Well, what is a leading question? What’s been stolen from you? What do you do with your days? What brought you here; to me, to Glasgow?
‘Oh, wait. You’ll love this one.’ But he is already gone.
He’s walking down the vaulted corridor, galleries opening on either side, and he is ignoring them. As you should. As you are drawn, intractably, along this narrow passage, by a thread of light that calls your name. I see it dawn on his face, the lines of cloud and sky and sea and cruciform arms, the billowing up and out and down of this sublime painting. Although it’s iconic, although you see its image on mugs and brollies, postcards and bags, it does not purport to be more than it is.
Quite simply, it is a vision.
I let him stand awhile. I’d forgotten how beautiful this picture was. Even the trace of the tear, a jagged half-square carved by a nutter’s knife, is beautiful. It speaks of visceral response. It’s like the painting kisses you, every time.
‘It’s called Christ of Saint John of the Cross.’ I don’t know why I’m whispering. ‘By a painter called Dali. Have you heard of him?’
Abdi shakes his head.
‘Do you like it?’
‘I do.’
His head rises a little on his neck. I hadn’t noticed it was bowed. Most people look up at the Dali, not down.
‘Do people pray here?’ he asks me.
‘Eh – no. I don’t think so.’
‘They should.’ He shrugs. ‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe,’ I agree. But I don’t. Not really. I don’t want to argue with him, though; in fact, I’m glad if he still has the comfort of prayer. To me, it just got easier to stop asking.
‘Coffee?’ I chirp. The word tastes bright and harsh.
We go back downstairs to the basement café, another new development, honey-scraped from the dust. Previously this was stores. They’ve gouged out windows through the sandstone, broad curving windows that seem to have always been here. There’s a shop full of trinkets and postcards, beaded bags and Egyptian jewellery. Actually, it’s very pleasant. I buy two buns. Iced ones.
‘Is this place very old?’ asks Abdi, as I place the plastic tray on our table. His rucksack is locked between his knees.
‘Quite old. About a hundred, hundred and twenty years?’
‘Mm.’ He sips his coffee. Makes a face.
‘Is it not very nice?’
I think for a moment he’s going to ignore me. His lips and brow indent, as if he’s doing a wee calculation.
‘Do you mean is nice or is not?’
‘No, that’s what I was asking you.’
‘Yes, but is hard to . . . it is . . . not easy. This is how you say it? With the knot always?’
‘Do we? With a knot?’
Maybe he’s not used to sugar.
‘Yes, you do. You say “is not far” when you mean is close. You say “not bad” when you mean a thing is good.’
‘No we don’t.’
I see I’ve flummoxed him further with this double-negative. I shake my head.
‘Sorry. Doesn’t matter. Is your coffee good?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. OK. Would you like some of my tea?’
‘No. Thank you.’
Oh, this is awful. I have to say something.
‘Simon tells me you have a wee girl?’
Immediately, he brightens. That smile again; every so often, a kindling radiance.
‘Yes. Rebecca.’
‘That
’s a lovely name. What age is she?’
‘She is four.’
‘Nice age.’
‘Do you have children?’
Yes no I did I was a mum and now I’m not, if I deny my baby then he didn’t exist but then he doesn’t exist and I imagine each possibility with which I can respond passing like colours through my skin.
‘No,’ is the answer I plump for in the end.
‘Ah.’
Abdi holds my gaze that pretends to be inscrutable, but is really belligerent. Do not feel sorry for me.
‘You are alone then?’
Christ. Tea, scalding the delicate puffiness of my mouth. The bluntness of his question stinging more. And he made me swear again. This is going terribly badly. I think I want to leave. I make myself swallow the bitter-hot tea. ‘I – my husband is dead, yes.’
He says nothing. Nods.
‘Yup. Dead and buried at forty-nine. Isn’t life a blast?’
The nodding stops.
‘Your wife?’ I figure this will be all right, since he started it. Abdi picks up his coffee cup once more, but doesn’t drink.
‘Apart from Rebecca, I am alone.’
For a while, neither of us speak. We each shift our buns around their plates, mine with a neat nibble either side, his untouched. It’s very hot in here, and clattery. Echoes of metal through the kitchen hatch, the smack of trays on trolleys. And yet they’ve hung fine art on the bare brick walls.
This Is Where I Am Page 4
