This Is Where I Am

by Karen Campbell

  It smells of my mum.

  Part Two

  Lost

  9. May

  Scotland Street School Museum

  A Scottish education is renowned for its vigour, breadth and integrity. As early as the 15th century, Scotland had schools for girls as well as boys, and, by the 17th century, there was a school in nearly every parish, with the population largely literate – putting the Scots education system well ahead of any in Europe.

  By the early 20th century, schools were, and continue to be, run by local councils. Scotland Street School was built in 1903 for the children of Tradeston shipbuilders, and is the only school ever to be realised by the famed Glaswegian architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Particular highlights include exquisite glazed tiling and a pair of windowed Scottish baronial-style tower staircases which let light flood the inner hall.

  Functioning as a school until 1979, Scotland Street is now preserved as a museum of education. Play peevers in the old Drill Hall, see what school days were like during World War II and climb to the top-floor cookery room for a panoramic view of Glasgow, before you sit up straight for a lesson in Miss McGregor’s Victorian classroom. And don’t worry – we no longer use the belt!

  Entry to Scotland Street School Museum is free.

  *

  ‘I met him in the library,’ I say, in response to Debs’s surprised Where from? As in ‘where-do-you-know-Geordie-the-Iraqi-from?’ We’re sitting on the low wall in the museum that acts as a form of gallery, separating the open corridor from the large main hall, which is also the foyer of the school. Rebecca is skipping on the hopscotch squares painted on the floor. Peever, Debs insists. We call it peever.

  ‘Yes, the library!’ I am quite short with her, actually. I can hear the bite of my voice, see it take effect. I’ve been what Mrs Coutts calls ‘gey frosty’ since the pancakes episode, ignoring Debs’s calls, waiting days before I text her back. The kindly smell had soothed me. Fooled me. I had let her serve up her cakes, let her appropriate my daughter – this child she will not teach – on her knee for a story, then tuck her into bed. Let her clear up my kitchen, clattering and chattering without pause, then sit by my side and firmly take my hand.

  ‘Maybe we should start again, yes? I’m here to mentor you, Abdi, not Rebecca. It’s all got a bit confused since I said I’d help with her school. I meant to say I’d help you get it sorted, not that I’d take over.’

  Me, fumbling for a phrase such as ‘Forget it’ or ‘Doesn’t matter’ but my real words and my learned words had become a nest of vipers; the sharp ones I needed slithering from my grasp. Then she said: ‘It might help if you told me a bit more about the two of you. Or about Rebecca’s mum, maybe? Abdi, believe me. I know how hard it is to lose a loved one.’

  Again, I cringed as she tried to dig out my past. Recoiling sufficiently until she left me alone, making vague promises to phone me soon. The space we make round our losses is not for others to invade. My life is my story to tell, as and when and how I choose, not as a payment for kindness or a sop to make things smooth. I want Debs to recognise this, and to know why I am so angry, but she refuses to do so; apart from one very brief allusion to Rebecca when we meet today. Well? Any more words? which is a trite and stupid question and to which I reply, truthfully: No.

  This ‘play it by ear’ – I looked it up on the computer in the library (which is how I met Geordie, incidentally, but that is none of her business). It means ‘the playing of music without reference to printed notation’ or ‘to handle a situation without applying predetermined rules’. It also means Debs will not bother her backside. (Perhaps I should appoint Mrs Coutts my official mentor.) Does Debs know what a terror it took, to ask her to help my daughter? Stupid refugee. I want a big pile of dictionaries for her, ruled paper and coloured inks. Not peever, whatever that might be.

  My rant continues. ‘Where else would I furnish myself with books? How else will I learn more words and ideas? You have idea of the “noble savage”, don’t you?’ (It would be nice to say I had been reading Dryden, but the truth is a patrician old lady said it on the train when I stood to give her my seat, so I searched also for it on Mr Google. Next time, I will remain seated.)

  ‘Abdi, I didn’t mean –’

  ‘No, no. I understand.’

  If I do push too far and she drives off without us, there is an underground train station right outside the school. Undergrounds, I have discovered, are even better than the land trains, because they have a picture of every station on them, telling you which one is next. Plus they run only in a circle, so you can never get lost. ‘I don’t mean you personally,’ I say, ‘it is collective “you”. French vous.’

  I append that deliberately, to show her the scope of my education. French, Italian, poetry – if she were to ask. Mathematics, science – everything useful except English, which my grandfather forbade me learn. The British were an occupying force in Somalia for many years, as were the Italians. I was never allowed to ask why, but he hated the British and loved pasta with tomato ragu. ‘Why should not Geordie visit library? Geordie was professor in Iraq, a man who said the wrong thing at wrong time. Now he is stripped of his country and profession, and all he can do is live in Refugee Office as another of your ghosts.’

  ‘He’s not a ghost, Abdi, he’s a person with a history. And that history’s scarred him. He talks to himself – haven’t you noticed?’

  My brain is clear on what I want to say. I want to tell her that all the yous see all of us as ghosts. We are shiftless shapes at the limits, and when or if the yous are forced to speak to us, they see an inarticulate fool who has no initiative, no breadth of feeling or understanding. Our future is bleak and to be managed; our past is a multi-authored file (and, if we are lucky, some supplementary medical reports to augment our case). Every time I am asked for ‘my story’, I am packaged up a little more. But all of this must remain inside.

  ‘Are you saying I should not speak with him because he is “damaged”? Geordie is very brilliant man. My Rebecca may be brilliant woman. Who knows how many great leaders, artists, mathematicians there could be in world – the whole world, Debs, I mean my world also – and yet they never will be – because of where they live. Here, you have much wealth and excess, but your youth are indolent. Fat. They consume but what they create? Do they create?’

  ‘I think that’s a little unfair.’ She rubs at her nose with her fist. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you know Geordie. I think he needs a friend.’

  She is determined not to engage with me in argument. To her, I am happy, simple Abdi. I have layers, yes, she thinks, but they are merely chronological, and once she has leafed through them to her satisfaction she will have read me. Knowing a person’s past tells you very little. ‘Layers’ suggest a skin that is complete and sealed and built upon, and that is absurd. People form like fishscales, who they are fashioned in overlaps of light and shade. This month I am grumpy, last month I was grateful. As a boy I was bright, as a youth I was brave. Tomorrow that shopkeeper may be rude to me again and I may laugh it off or the sight of a golden-scarved woman may remind me of my wife and I will go home to curl up and weep.

  ‘So do you like this place?’ Debs asks.

  ‘Is all right.’

  ‘Rebecca seems to be having fun. She liked the old classroom, didn’t she? The one with the inkwells and the gas masks?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘I thought it might be good. I love it here – and not just because I used to be a teacher.’

  I stiffen. Is the subject of Rebecca’s education to be raised now, or is she waiting for me to ask again? I will not ask, and I will not respond. I wish we were speaking properly, though, because I know precisely what she means. I love the liquid-green tiles on the walls and the asymmetric janitor’s house; the fact that the same care is lavished on carving cupboards in the kitchen as there is in the azure droplets of glass. You sense the spirit of the place – I think that is what made me snap about ghosts. The echo
es in this hall could be long-gone voices, not Rebecca’s slapping feet. (How I have grown to hate these welly boots, the molten pink and rubber smell, the tight screak of them as I prise them off each night when she goes to bed. One day soon I hope they become too small.)

  ‘The architecture’s stunning, isn’t it? Says a lot about how they valued education, giving kids such an airy space.’ Debs looks upwards, eyes following the bevel of the long gridded window. ‘Yeah. So, one, I brought you here because everyone who comes to Glasgow should see a Rennie Mackintosh. Two, I wanted to show Rebecca what the inside of a school is like – albeit an empty, preserved-in-aspic, designer-handbag of a school. And three, I thought, as a fellow teacher, it might put a smile on your huffy bloody face.’

  ‘What is huffy bloody?’

  ‘You are huffy bloody. Or bloody huffy, I suppose. Either way, you’ve had a petted lip on you since I picked you up. So come on, out with it. What’s wrong?’

  ‘There is nothing wrong.’

  ‘Is it the Housing? Have you still not heard from them?’

  ‘No, I have not.’

  ‘Well, it’s only been three weeks. Give it one more week and if you haven’t heard anything, I’ll give them a ring, OK?’

  ‘Fine. Rebecca,’ I call. ‘Come. It is time to go.’

  Debs glances at her watch. ‘No rush. Is it work? Are you worried about work?’

  She must know I had a meeting with my caseworker – on the same day I got the train and was baptised a ‘noble savage’. Do they discuss me at the Refugee Council? Do they say ‘Oh poor Abdi needs a job’ like ‘Poor Geordie needs a friend’?

  ‘I have no work to worry about.’

  ‘Not yet, no. But I heard you were thinking about college?’

  ‘My caseworker says now I am refugee-status I can apply to go in September time. Learn more English and exams in mathematics and science. Things I already know, but have no paper to say that.’

  ‘That’s great. I think you’ll really enjoy college. And what about Reb –’

  Her phone trills reedily, bouncing on the low wall where she has placed it. Unusual for Debs, to be so overtly attached to her phone. She swipes it up. ‘Damn. Sorry, Abdi, I need to get this. Been trying to get hold of her for weeks. Hello? Yes . . . No, slow down, I can’t understand what you’re –’ A pause in which she nods. ‘Yeah, yeah. I know it. Out – no, inside? Are you sure? It’ll be quite dark then.’ Another silence, another nod. ‘All right, that’s fine. I’ll see you then. Bye now. Bye.’ A click of the plastic scallop cover and the phone is shoved in her handbag. ‘Phew!’ she says. ‘What a palaver.’

  ‘Is there problems?’

  ‘No, no. Just a friend . . . well, it’s kind of . . . it’s nothing. Sorry. We were talking about your work? So what are you going to do from now until September. Get a job?’

  ‘What I wanted to do is teach. Right now. But I do not have your qualifications.’

  ‘You say that like I’m greedy or something!’

  ‘Rebecca, come down from the stairs, please. Not greedy, no. But wasteful?’

  She sucks on her breath, the way I would eat up noodles. I am ashamed of myself. This woman is not my saviour. I invest too much in her, then I punish her when she doesn’t meet my needs. But this is about my daughter, not me. Debs pulls her knees to her chest, fixes again on the lustrous window. Its insistent light dominates the hall, bouncing back from gleaming tiles to land in dapples and wavery squares. Reminding me of water rippling.

  ‘So, tell me,’ she says. ‘What sort of books is it you’ve been getting in the library?’

  ‘Is hard for me to choose.’

  The first time, I borrowed nothing. Where do you begin in a room crammed with foreign free books? Stacked linear planes and towers of books, most shoved in sideways with only a single strip of text and colour to entice your hands to touch. I sidled like a thief, scrutinising with my head on one side, moving back and forth then out. The next time, I asked the man at the desk: what is a good book to read, please? He said, well, this is very popular, passing me a book about a blonde woman who is famed for having very large breasts. The third time, I recalled a book the priest, Paolo, had in the camp. It was by an Irishman called Lewis, with a lion on the front. Paolo’s copy was in Italian, but he said it was read the world over. ‘It is a Christian allegory,’ I told the man at the desk. ‘Try the kids’ section,’ he said.

  ‘Well, what kind of stuff do you like?’ asks Debs. ‘History or novels? What about the war – men always like war books.’

  ‘Do they? Which war is that?’

  The jaggedness in my voice is beginning to harm me too. I need to stop, but how? ‘Rebecca!’ I shout. ‘Come down from there at once.’ My daughter ignores me.

  Debs is chewing her lip. ‘How about some Scottish books? Would you like me to recommend a couple?’

  ‘I like to read poetry.’

  ‘Poetry! Oh, OK. Um . . . have you tried Norman MacCaig? He’s very good. Lots of landscape stuff.’

  Despite my rudeness, she continues to appease me, which makes me more ashamed, and thus more belligerent. Why am I doing this, should I not be grateful for the efforts she does make? She is nominally kind – we have established, I think, that she will only offer what she can – and I must accept that. I can talk to her. I learn, I enjoy her company. Without her, I would have Mrs Coutts, my church and my television, with all its brash cartoons. Even the programmes for adults are mostly like cartoons. And I want good books, am greedy for them.

  ‘Thank you, yes. I will try him. And also novels. I would like to read a book that tells me what it is to be Scottish. Please.’

  The basket of her hands unlocks, letting her legs go free. She stretches them long, is wearing the green leg coverings again with high brown boots. I think her hair is different too? A richer brown, made luminous inside all this light. She is very pretty today.

  ‘That’s a tall order. OK, let me see . . . well, Sunset Song’s an obvious one. You might end up doing it for your English exam anyway, but it’s a brilliant book. All about how the land endures, no matter what folk throw at it. Tells you a lot about rural life too, how it used to be. It’s not contemporary, of course, so you’ll need one that . . .’ she chews her lip. ‘I know. James Kelman. Either The Busconductor Hines or Kieron Smith, Boy. If they don’t take you inside the head of the Scottish male, nothing will.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So.’ She nudges me, whisper-light. ‘Are we friends again?’

  ‘I am very grateful to you,’ I say, before standing up to fetch my daughter.

  We take the underground train back to Cardonald. I tell Debs it will be an adventure for Rebecca, and it is. She laughs as the trains whizz past us; I let her watch a couple rush by before we get on the next one. As long as she knows about the noise and dark beforehand, we are fine. It is unknown dark that scares her. We make a game of counting stations. Well, I count, she listens. But she is absorbing every drop of information I give her. When we get home, I make dinner (Chic’n’Stix: a combination of those breaded chicken threads and very thin potato chips. It is disgusting) then give her a bath. There’s a musical night at the Somali Centre this evening. If things had gone well today, I was going to ask Debs if she would sit with Rebecca for a while. Mrs Coutts doesn’t like to venture out at night, even up one flight of stairs, and I would have liked the chance to hear some qaraami. I rarely go to the Somali Centre, it is on the other side of the city, and mostly it is just talking and chewing and reminiscing for what you cannot have. Plus I am no longer a Muslim and that can cause . . . difficulties. Nothing overt, we are all brothers in God, but it makes me ‘other’ there too. After we get the Abdi mans, good to see yous over, and the familiar beautiful babble has washed me clean, there are always lot of whys? Why are you reading that book? Why you turn Christian? We have Somali women here – why do you not take another wife? Then I respond Why do you not learn English? Why do you not let your wife go to college? And t
hey shake their heads, or whistle. What is the point man? and I tell them: We are not going back, though. This is where we are; we are here to stay. And then they look like I have punched them and I go home.

  Hard as I scrub the surface of this bathtub, the ingrained grime remains. A grey streak along the bottom and some orange stains of rust. It long pre-dates our arrival in the flat: dirt compressed by another person’s buttocks. We make bubbles with Miss Matey so the dirt is hidden. You never get white dirt.

  ‘OK, mucky pup. Clothes off.’ Obediently, Rebecca holds up her arms for me to remove jumper and vest. Steps out of her pants and trousers, carefully manoeuvring so she retains the wellies.

  ‘Hoi! Boots too, please.’

  Rebecca shakes her head.

  ‘Boots off. Now.’

  Defiant, she sits on the edge of the bath, little pot-belly thrust out. I bend to grab a boot.

  ‘No!’ she says firmly.

  I rest there a while, my lips and forehead inches from her shin. Resisting the compulsion to hold her close, to paint her wonderful face with kisses. Praying quietly in my head. Do not take this away from me, Lord. Do not take this away. Feeling my body pause and hold like the instant before you land a catch and a single wrong movement could lose you that week’s livelihood. Only this is far more precious and fine. A huge breath in and I say: ‘No boots off, no bath. Now quick, before the bubbles pop.’

  She complies! I am amazed! At her, at the smooth soap-scented air and the thrill of my blood. I am amazed that we are here, that both our lives are whole and here. That we have hope! And the first person I want to tell is Deborah. We make it a quick bath, a sluicing, so that I can scoop my baby out and swaddle her with towels, swing her high and kiss, kiss, kiss. My face is wet from bathwater, that is all! Into the living room, quick, quick, quick – the hall is cold! Brrr. I blow on her neck to wordless giggles – and as I pass from the front door to the living room I hear a clang. A letter at this late hour? Perhaps it is about my house, because today is a day of wonderful surprises! Putting my girl down on the couch, returning to see and to fetch her slippers and there is a smell, an acrid smell of burning and I begin to shake, am shaking it is the smell of burning as my village burned as the flesh of my friends and family charred, there is burning on my floor. Twisted newspaper belching flames and I stamp on it, stamping and yelling; it is soft beneath the paper. Something squirts. Hits me on the hands, the face. Warm and stinking like body-bloody-bursting-red – they burst like sausages – dear Christ, I keep stamping, stamping out the pain in my burning feet. ‘Go back to the living room!’ I yell at Rebecca. ‘Is OK, is OK!’ She is standing behind me, sobbing. Her eyes black and wide, her clean face filthy with little brown drops. I bend down to her. With my thumb, I wipe her tears.