The National Park Authority seeks to accommodate both land-based tourists and loch users, with environmentally sensitive areas subject to strict speed limits. The rest of the loch, however, is open to speeds of up to 90 km per hour. Whilst entry to Loch Lomond, along with walking and climbing, is free, there are charges for some activities. Of course, you can always bring your own boat.
*
A stone scattering sparks. As it lands fully and punches through the water’s face, it will blast circles up and out. The process has begun already, but they are caught, these circles. Framed, they have become suspended hoops, suggestions of themselves made flat. Tones of brown and green, of creamy-gold and purple-blue rustle and call you in. Yes, I think. That’s it. We’ll go somewhere that’s alive. In the foreground, a heron preens its plumage and the mountain preens itself in the water.
The computer screen glows green with the shimmer of the loch. Slowly, pointlessly, I spell out my name. You rarely get the same person twice when you phone here, but I’m finding people like the security of it. If you give your name to them, it’s an anchor they can hold.
‘That’s right. Delta, Echo, Bravo. Debs.’
‘Thank you, Debs,’ says the thin, tired voice. ‘I will remember you.’
‘Good luck,’ I reply. I sound as exhausted as she did. A minute to calm down. I’m fine while I’m talking, or doing. It’s afterwards . . . My nails gleam in the artificial light. My sister Gill persuaded me to get a French manicure. Resistance is futile, she beamed. You want to look all smart! The girl did a lovely job on me, but no one really dresses up in here. Including me. I just bought my first pair of leggings. Worn with a baggy top, mind, to offset their clinginess. Beneath the desk, I circle my ankles. They are very comfy. But my new bra is chafing. Absently, I rub the side of my breast.
A large brunette leans over my workstation. On my side – so she must be someone that works here. Either that or a revolt is underway and we’re being raided by our clients.
‘Ooh. Did I hear you using the phonetic alphabet?’ Her breath is nicotine and coffee, her scent is crisp and old. Charlie? Do they still make that?
‘I always find it’s better to use words like “Dog” or “Egg”.’ She’s got a little dab of lipstick on her teeth.
‘Really? I find it better not to patronise folk.’
Gamu, the volunteer next to me, snorts a little, then dips her face in her coffee mug. The brunette lady hoists the rim of her spangly jumper down over her tummy.
‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ Her question is rhetorical; she extends a hand in welcome. ‘I’m Mrs Winters. Senior Project Officer and Campaigns Manager? I’m just back from my holidays.’
‘I’m Deborah.’
‘So I gathered. Hello, Deborah. You can call me Caro – we’re all very informal here. Well, didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll no doubt see you later.’
A nasty flush burns up my neck and face. I want to go after her, say I’m sorry. I don’t get out much! But the damage is done. She looked about ages with me, too. We might have gone for lunch together. Gloomily, I inspect my keyboard, small puffs of fluff flying up as I breathe over its smooth black lines.
I have a keyboard!
I’ve started volunteering at the Refugee Council. Just the odd day here and there, when they’re really busy. No, make that ‘short staffed’. They’re always busy. It was Simon’s idea. We’d had our second meeting, the one where the mentor is brought in and asked: So. How d’you think things are going? And you either say: Fine or Well . . . and then launch into a big long guddle of reasons why it’s not really working.
‘Fine,’ I said. It felt odd to be speaking about Abdi, actually, as if it were private, or I was talking about him behind his back.
‘Good, good,’ said Simon. ‘And you’re enjoying the whole process, then? Any problems?’
I searched my mind for problems. Me, who is nothing but a little ray of sunshine.
‘Nope.’
And it’s true. Practically. Abdi is my friend-stroke-project-stroke-good-deed right now. We’re learning, slowly, about what we want from each other, what we share and what we can share. No different from any other relationship.
‘No. I think we’re getting on fine. I’m hoping to meet his daughter soon –’
I stopped. So keen to get Brownie points for how well we’re bonding that I didn’t think. Did they know about Rebecca’s not-speaking? Did I just break a confidence? Was I even allowed to meet his family, because, to be honest, I hadn’t read all the bumph they’d given me from cover to cover. It was all a bit earnest, with lots of SHOUTY TEXT!!
‘Yeah, well,’ I backtrack. ‘At some point it would be nice to meet her. Rebecca, she’s called.’
Of course, Simon had the file in front of him, but it was important to me that he knew that I knew. ‘I used to be a teacher you see . . .’ It was a lame tailing-off, made worse by the slightly creepy: ‘I like kids.’
‘That’s why we thought you’d make a good pairing,’ he said.
‘Because Abdi used to be a teacher too?’
Simon smiled. ‘Did he tell you that? That’s great.’ Then he smiled a bit more. ‘And are you enjoying the whole “interaction” thing, Deborah?’
Yup, he did make wee air quotes as he said it. Nice chap, Simon. Late twenties, beginning to bald – and I suspect his mum picks up his jumpers in Asda when she’s getting the messages. But you can tell his heart’s in the right place. Tucked right behind the three neat biros he keeps clipped in the dip of his V-neck. Bless.
‘You mean “talking”?’ I did the air quotes back at him. ‘Yes, I do. Abdi’s a fascinating person.’
Fascinating? A puzzle to be solved? A sop to my need to ‘help someone’ and fill my day? I bet Abdi’s had the same interview. We’re not allowed to ask what our mentee said about us. I wish I could. I’m not sure if we are ‘getting on fine’. We’ve only texted twice since Kelvingrove, once to confirm our next meeting, and the second time for me to check what dates suited for the psychologist. His answer had been instant – and very vague:
R school sorted. No need. Do not wory. A
Was I no longer to contact Education, then? Had Rebecca started talking of her own volition? We were way into March, the deadline for her school enrolment was past, and I’d had no more word on what Abdi wanted me to do, despite me texting ‘Why?’. But I must ‘respect our distances as well as our differences’, it says in my mentors’ handbook. Also helpfully vague. Me being me, I keep thinking: maybe he doesn’t like me. Was he more upset by the curator shouting at him than he’d let on? Did I not defend him well enough? But then, he’d told me about Rebecca afterwards . . . or was that the shock? I’d thought we’d bonded over it, och, not bonded, but I thought . . . I thought I was thinking too much. This monthly-meeting framework is too impersonal. More rigid lines to trip over. Texts are impersonal too. But a trip to the Bonnie Banks would give us plenty of time to talk. Although, if I didn’t get my backside into gear and hire a car, we’d have to hike it there and back. Loch Lomond in March? Och, it would be a breeze. (Considerable pun intended.)
‘Now, you’re not actually working at all at the moment, are you?’ Simon continued.
‘No. Like I said before, when my husband took ill –’
He’d held up a hand. ‘Oh, no, no, I’m not . . . what I’m thinking is, well, you’re clearly a “people person”.’
‘Am I?’
‘Oh God yes. Abdi . . . if he’s talking about his daughter and his teaching in the space of two brief meetings . . . well, you’re obviously the type of person who . . . you seem like a good listener, Deborah.’
I knew he was buttering me up for something, drizzling me with oily sentiment before he popped me in a hot oven, but, regardless, I allowed myself a bask. Because I was a people person, once. Before Callum’s illness took hold . . . ach, before lots of stuff, when I still believed in happy endings, in positive thinking and all that guff, I was quite good fun. But bitte
r bindweed has taken hold. It’s where they get widow’s weeds from. Doesn’t refer to garments at all. No. These weeds are constant green tendrils of restless despair, trussing you. Always.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And you’re telling me this because. . . ?’
‘I was hoping you might get a bit more involved.’ Simon folded his hands neatly beneath his chin. ‘Here at the Council, I mean. We’re always looking for volunteers – even if you could only do one day a month. The Helpdesk in particular, it can be pretty . . . well, you saw for yourself how busy the waiting room was when you came in today.’
It was manic. Babies in pushchairs, old men in tattered coats, dark-eyed women flapping hands, shrilling tongues, and a bank of phones that rang and were answered, rang and were answered, rang and rang and abruptly gave up. Those were the ones I worried about most. Did they ever ring back? Was that their one and only cry for help, lost in a vacuum of nobody there?
‘Oh . . . I don’t know,’ I said. But I did. ‘OK then. Just the odd day.’
Simon undid his fingers, shook my hand. The false neat smile slipped away and a person grinned at me. And I wondered if he found it as hard to ask for help as I found it to offer.
Behind our workstation, another phone rings. A toddler howls.
‘Oh-ho. You and the boss lady were bonding well!’ Gamu is grinning at me. ‘Coffee?’ She waves her empty mug.
I shake my head. She’s lovely, Gamu. She was one of the first people I met at the Refugee Council. It was she who took me through for my mentoring interview with Simon. I’d thought she was an employee, but it turns out she’s a volunteer like me.
‘Oh Lord no. I do this just for love, Debs.’
‘So are you an asylum seeker too?’
‘Tch, no. I’m a nurse.’
Another of my presumptions. While the employees might reflect that necessary diversity, all the volunteers, I assumed, would be white-middle-class and all the clients would be . . . not. Take Geordie, for instance (I’m sure that isn’t his real name). A slim and neat gentleman who hails from Iraq and is the perpetual bearer of a battered briefcase – even when he goes to the loo. Talks to himself a bit as well. I’d thought he was a harmless waif who’d wandered in and been permitted house room. It transpires Geordie is a celebrated professor and mathematician, who volunteers daily, is particularly good with the spreadsheets and has been in asylum limbo for nearly seven years. He carries his life’s work in that briefcase, because the hostel-hovel he lives in has been firebombed twice and his room is ransacked on an almost weekly basis. On his neck and wrists, he bears quiet twisted scars.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised at Gamu’s revelation.
‘I was invited here, my darling.’
This was on my first day; we were stuffing down a quick lunchtime sandwich.
‘Yeah. You Scots were so desperate for my skills you begged me to come live here. Heh-heh-heh!’ She’d slapped my back, causing a piece of cheese to go down the wrong way. ‘OK, OK. Tiny white lie. But I did come here to study, you know? Few years ago now – I’m talking two thousand four, two thousand five? And you had this wonderful scheme. We were called “Fresh Talent” –’
‘No – that’s what they called you up the dancing,’ said Len, the most un-PC politics graduate I’ve ever met.
‘Button it, big boy!’
It was fortunate we were in the staffroom.
‘I tell you, Debs, it was a marvellous thing. You guys didn’t have enough nurses, so they say we don’t need a work permit, we can stay, you know? We have proved we are smart, we are working hard. But the best thing is – you need us.’ She had lowered her voice, even though it was only us and daft Len in the room. ‘That’s what’s so bad about those poor babes who bowl in here. Don’t nobody need them, you know?’
At the Helpdesk, helping was your job. By definition, every soul who entered your portals (or stood at your slightly shabby counter) was seeking assistance. Choosing to volunteer here meant I wouldn’t risk mortifying myself like I did with that poor boy in the street. With Abdi too, I was finding it awkward to know my boundaries. Working at the Helpdesk was foolproof. Deborah-proof. It would provide that warm, fuzzy glow I was so desperate to ignite, and it would be a preordained exchange, so no one could get hurt.
I’ve just finished dealing with a destitute mum of four when my phone goes again. You’re telephone-based as well as front-facing (I’m learning new jargon by the second), so the whole place is going like a fair pretty much constantly. There’s an urgency that could frighten you if you let it. Abdi is quiet, reserved, with the occasional glimmer of humour. He’s had time and distance to repackage himself. Most folk that trundle in here are on their knees. They are as raw as it is possible to be and still keep walking. But there’s a thrill in it too. Each time I pick up the phone I am tested. Faint, dusty lobes of my brain will cough, I can feel them come to life as I field an enquiry, punch in a number or tug a colleague’s sleeve for help. Not sure about the fuzzy glow yet, mind.
The phone’s still ringing. I give my chair a wee twirl as I reach out.
‘Hello? Scottish Refugee Council.’
‘Aye, this is Baird Street Police Office here. We’ve got a young man at the front desk, claiming to be an asylum seeker.’
‘OK. Do you have a name for him?’ I flick over to my keyboard, fingers poised. Beside the glass door which leads into the foyer, I can see Gamu put her arm round a little girl. The child is Chinese, tiny and round. I doubt she’s even in her teens. From here, she looks pregnant but she can’t possibly be.
‘Naw,’ says Mr Charisma at Baird Street. ‘No name.’
‘Right. Eh . . . d’you get the impression he’s just arrived here?’
‘Looks like it. He’s . . . well, he’s minging, to put it politely. Disny speak a word of English other than “asylum”.’
‘Well, what we need to do –’
‘Look, I’m up to my eyes here, hen. Can you no just send someone up to get him? He keeps greeting.’
‘I’m afraid we don’t have any vehicles . . .’
He sighs. ‘You’re in Cadogan Street, yes?’
‘Just off. Cadogan Square.’
‘And you will deal with him?’
‘Well, we’ll do our best. Once we’ve worked out where he’s from we’ll –’
What? I run through my mental checklist. I need to arrange an interpreter. If he’s already claimed asylum, we’ll have to think about emergency housing, check if he’s on his own. I got my fingers burned the last time – arranging a hostel for one, then finding out it was a family of five. And, if he’s not claimed asylum?
Well.
Computer says no. There is no alternative, and no way we can help. He must present at Liverpool; that is the law. All we can do is point him in the direction of the bus station and give him the money for the fare.
‘Right, I’ll tell him to come down to you lot then,’ says Constable Charisma.
‘Wait!’ I say.
The Chinese girl is shuffling into the waiting room. Gamu seems to be holding her up; she is shivering, soaked. Thin snakes of hair are flattened to her brow.
‘Sorry?’ The policeman does not sound happy.
‘Are you going to make him walk? Baird Street’s miles away.’
‘You’re just after saying you havny got any cars.’
‘But you must have. Surely.’
There is a little pause, and in that pause I see that the Chinese child is pregnant. Gamu helps her to a chair and the wee soul won’t let go her hand. Gamu’s telling her she’s going to get someone but the girl is weeping and shaking her head.
‘Can I just tell you, madam, we are extremely busy. We’ve no got time to run a taxi service –’
‘Look!’ I yelp.
Isabelle, the caseworker on my other side, raises an eyebrow. She’s my de facto supervisor. But as she doesn’t bodily seize the phone from me, I carry on. Actually, I don’t think I could stop.
‘You have a distressed, destitute asylum seeker, who by your own admission doesn’t speak a word of English. Despite whatever horrors he’s had inflicted on him – quite possibly by people in uniform – he’s come to you for help. You. Baird Street is away at the back of beyond – I don’t think I could find my way to Cadogan Square from there. In the time it’s taken for us to argue the toss, you could have just stuck him in a passing patrol car and dropped him off here.’
‘Listen, hen. We’re no a charity.’
‘Aye, well we are. I mean, for God’s sake, what if it was you? Can I just tell you – I am an unpaid volunteer, as are many of my colleagues, this charity is seriously lacking in funds, but see if you put him in a taxi, I’ll pay the bloody fare myself. How’s that?’
I hear him clear his throat. ‘Eh, there’s no need for that.’
Here we go. Time for the complaint. Isabelle’s looking at me like I’ve sprouted horns.
The policeman’s voice is flat. ‘I’ll get one of the boys to bring him down. How’s that?’
‘Thank you,’ I say, still watching the Chinese kid. She’s refusing to take her seat. I hang up the phone. Gamu’s half-dragging the girl, trying to get her to stand up or sit down, but she’s curling up on the dirty floor. One of the other women in the waiting room goes to help. I leave the desk. Now Gamu’s crying, and Isabelle’s shouting at her, telling her that the way she’s holding the kid is ‘client assault’. Mrs Winters-call-me-Caro emerges from her eyrie to join in the fray.
‘Hey, there.’ I kneel down on the lino with the little girl. ‘Hey, ssh now. It’s OK. Nobody’s going to hurt you.’
‘Hut you,’ whispers the child. Her eyes are sealed, she’s in a trance.
‘Hey there.’
‘Tere.’
‘Hey there. Ssh.’ I keep repeating nonsense, she echoes it back, no longer moving apart from her blue-tipped lips and small scrabbles of her hands. Caro Winters butts her butt in.
This Is Where I Am Page 7
