This Is Where I Am

by Karen Campbell

  Readers’ comments (1) There are to many on the waiting lists to house people coming in from abroad like this. There are to many local authoritys homes tied up in this way. There are plenty of cheap providers – let them do it. Anonymous

  ‘Och, don’t look at that rubbish. They can’t even spell.’

  Debs tries to pull the screen away from me, but I hold it steady until I’m finished reading.

  ‘Do you think these people know who we are? What we come from?’ My head is getting heavy. A thickness building in my nose; it’s the flowers. ‘Is there a way to talk to them? I would like to talk to them. Ask if they had to flee their nice houses and jobs, snatch up their children and run from men with guns, run from their own government who beats and robs their people, where it is they would go. What it is they would hope for.’

  Debs is shrugging her jacket on. ‘Och, Abdi. Folk who make comments like that can’t empathise. All they know is what they read in the tabloids – which would make you a mad pirate as well as a job-and-house-stealing mugger of old ladies. But,’ as she stands up, she gently tugs my tie, ‘a very smart one, too, I must say. Now, are we going for lunch or what? And by the way, if you’re all dressed up because we’re off somewhere posh, you can forget about paying for it, OK?’

  ‘Why? Will we run away instead?’

  For a long blank second, Debs looks horrified, until I add: ‘When they bring the bill?’

  ‘Ha, ha, very funny.’

  I’d said in my text I’d take Debs for lunch. That is what friends do. I hear them on the television, there is even a programme called Friends, and, always, always, they are meeting for coffee or lunch. Problem is, I don’t eat lunch. And I don’t know where to go. So I asked my friend Geordie. Geordie is a cultured man.

  ‘You like poetry, Abdi?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘And you like the oldness of this city, the history? Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you are no longer good Muslim, so the alcohol won’t matter?’ He had waggled lush eyebrows above his spectacles.

  ‘No. I am a fallen man,’ I laughed, although I’ve never tasted alcohol. But I suppose the potential’s there. Geordie closed the book he’d been reading. We were in the library, of course. Rebecca was enjoying Story Corner, I could see her listening intently as the librarian read to a cluster of children. Occasionally, her mouth would form circles and slants. Practising. I’m still not sure where it is Geordie lives. He sighed portentously. Took off his glasses, dabbed his moustache. ‘Yesterday, Abdi, a man handed me a lucky ticket. He was tourist. American. It was for open-top bus trip round the town. Very good, he said. Very, very good. And he was finished with it, and would I like it? Is not like half-eaten fish supper, you know? Half-used bus ticket is OK, so I said yes. Up on the bus I go. Oh, Abdi, it was mar-vel-oos. You should take the little one, you see the city most different. They give you little plugs, too, for your ears, and a commentary in several languages. And, fortuitously for you, we pass the very place. Ancient hostelry, nestled on the banks of the mighty Clyde, and home to folk club and poets’ retreat.’

  ‘Sounds good. And do they have lunch?’

  ‘Oh yes. Very very best of Scottish cuisine.’

  And it’s in the city centre too. We checked it on Mr Google. So that is where we are going. Debs and I walk into the sunshine. She’s left her flowers out of water, on her desk, but I don’t mind. I am bursting, bursting to say about my job, but walking, I can’t keep sight of her face. It bobs and weaves below me. We go through streets teeming with people, most of them eating from paper bags, walk past Central Station, with its big grand hotel rising over it. A curious statue of a man in a face-mask stands outside the door. A miner? A fireman? He is big and sturdy and blank.

  ‘Where is it we’re going?’

  ‘The Scotia Bar,’ I say proudly.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes? Why? Is that not good? Geordie said it was a very good place –’

  ‘Geordie? Our Geordie? Iraqi Geordie?’

  ‘Yes.’ I sound defensive.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought an old man’s pub would be his kind of place.’

  ‘Old man’s pub? It is a folk club and poets’ retreat.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’

  ‘Do you not like it, Deborah?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I’ve ever actually been. It’s the one in Stockwell Street? With the black and white beams?’

  ‘It is.’ I have seen the picture on Google. I will recognise it, I’m sure.

  We pass the department store where we bought Rebecca’s wellington boots, carry on down Glassford Street and into Stockwell Street. Wait for a gap in the buses, then cross the road, the bulky glass dome of St Enoch’s shopping centre to the right of us. Ahead, a lone black-grey spire reaches up to the sky. It seems to jut straight through the roof of a lower, paler building which is adorned with curlicues of fish and coiled serpents. The steeple is like a tree growing through a crack. An optical illusion, surely. I would ask, but it’s been some time since either of us spoke, and with each quiet step we take, it’s harder to start a conversation. One more crossing, and we are outside the Scotia Bar. It’s further than I realised, and I worry that Debs will be late getting back to the Council. She must mean to go back – she left her roses there.

  In front of us, the slow brown water of the Clyde slips by. There was a ford here, once, so Geordie says. Medieval Glaswegians would wade, or paddle coracles, to move from north to south. Now, many iron and marble bridges traverse the river. Turn your head left, turn right, and all you see are spans of bridges, some squat, some graceful. There is one stringed swinging beauty over there that looks to me like a harp. Only people walk on it. Most of the bridges are thunderous with traffic or trains. What would my mother have thought of these speeding, roaring hulks that eat you up and carry you off? I’d never have got her inside one, that’s for sure. It is an evil jinn, child. Do not trust the evil jinn!

  We stand outside the bar. The walls are rugged dirty-white, panelled with black strips. Each panel outside bears a painted board, with the legends:

  Pool and Beer

  Mince and Tatties

  Real Ales and Real People

  Two men contemplate us through blue smoke. Their faces are weathered and tracked with broken veins. One is gangly, his mouth fallen in on empty gums. The other is small, wears a cap. The one with no upper teeth clicks his tongue. ‘All right, folks?’ A little flurry of spittle accompanies his words.

  ‘Well,’ sniffs Debs, her hand on the brass doorplate. She pushes, and a waft of warmth, of dark polished wood and live bodies and malt rushes out. Inside I can see long red benches and glittering brass. From somewhere hidden, a curl of music rises thinly. It is a fiddle, I think.

  ‘Well,’ repeats Deborah. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

  12.

  It is fine, actually. The food, I mean. I have steak pie, Abdi has the fish. We’re pretty much done now, but he pokes the remainder of it with his knife. Our table is a play of intersecting sun and shade, four neat squares reflecting from the window behind Abdi on to the surface, slicing dark smooth wood with bouncing light.

  ‘Why is so much orange? Your beer is orange, that fizzy stuff you drink is orange, every food you eat is crispy-fried-and-crumbs orange.’ He holds up a piece of fish, screwing up his eyes as if he’s examining it. ‘Hello, Mr Fish. Yes, all nice fruity colours – and yet, you people never eat fruit.’ Grinning widely as he gabbles. My fault; I suggested we have some wine to celebrate. Mentoring Abdi in the wicked ways of the west. Well, we were both getting a bit gloomy thinking about the Refugee Council. Shit. Oops, pardon me. I check my watch. I should really be getting back, but you feel a bit pointless, sitting there behind your desk, with not a clue what to tell those desperate faces. So many lives about to be turned upside down. We’ll sort it out, I’ve assured him. There’ll be marches, protests. Don’t you worry. But I know it’s taken the shine off Abdi’s excitemen
t. God love him, he even asked if Geordie could come and live in his new flat. So, if a wee drop of cheap white wine can get his fizz back, then where’s the harm? He’s a big boy, he doesn’t need to keep drinking it. And we’re pals again, proper pals having lunch and sharing a laugh.

  ‘Don’t forget most of our women are orange too.’ I nod towards a skinny blonde who’s propping up the bar. I say blonde, but she’s really platinum, with skin so tanned I’m not surprised she’s wearing sunglasses. Abdi sloshes us both another glass of wine.

  ‘A toast!’ His voice is a little too loud.

  ‘Another one? What for now?’

  He clears his throat. ‘Today, I have very good news.’

  Not again. I lift my glass. ‘And I say once more: To your new hoose. Lang may your lum reek.’

  ‘Ah, no, not my house . . .’

  ‘Old Mr Bullmore’s deid?’

  ‘Deborah! As you know, Mr Bullmore and I no longer converse. Since his return from the hospital he has been most subdued. I believe Sergeant Heath may have visited him again. But I do not wish him to be dead. No. Dear friend. Today . . .’ he is bouncing in his seat. The tie, loosened by now, veers slightly to the left and the dip of his collarbone is glistening. I watch him lick his lips. His every move is taut with concentration. ‘I have also got a job!’

  ‘Oh, Abdi!’ I clap my hands, foolishly like a little girl. ‘How? Where?’

  His finger waves admonishment. ‘Do not pretend, my dear, dear friend. Before I come here, I have the interview. The interview your dear, kind brother has made for me?’

  I had completely forgotten. At Gill’s that night, at dinner, I’d given Richard Abdi’s details, asked if there was anything he could do about the apprentice scheme. But the sneaky bugger had not said another word. I notice the blonde girl staring at us. At Abdi, to be fair. He is a handsome man, but it’s not his face. There is lightness about him, a luminosity that’s striking. It’s not gaudy, or brash. There’s a dignity to him I’ve never seen before. He is a bright patch of satisfaction. The woman smiles at him, and he gives her a steady grin.

  Aye. Buggers. Plural. ‘Is that right? And why did no one tell me?’

  ‘Pah. We are men together. We talk, we decide. Why should a very un-orange woman be consulted of manly things?’

  I find myself rising in my chair, planting a kiss, hard on his cheek. The scrape and the soap-smell, dizzying.

  ‘Well done you!’ I arrange myself back on my chair, pulling it further from the table. ‘That is just fantastic. Tell me all about it.’

  ‘I start in one month’s time! Apprentice fishmongerer.’

  ‘Monger.’

  ‘Mong-ger then!’ He rolls his eyes. ‘We have training and college, and we work with supervisors. At the end I will get a certificate and –’

  ‘Fish college? What about going to study English?’

  ‘I can do that too. My work college is only one day, my training is for two. It is very, very excellent. They do it so for people with benefits, they can still train.’

  The more wine he consumes, the looser his sentence structure becomes. It’s quite sweet. I forget to be annoyed that Richard never consulted me, or that Abdi never cracked a light. I am a good mentor, so I am. My little mentee is flying the nest . . .

  ‘And they have part-time work when I am qualify, so even if I train to be a teacher, I can still make money.’

  ‘What about Rebecca?’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘If she was going to school this year, it would make it so much simpler.’

  ‘Yes. Well, she is not. I have speak –’ he frowns ‘– spoken to Mrs Coutts, and she will watch her one day. The college has a crèche, so she can go there when –’

  ‘Abdi, I’ve been talking to my sister. She’s a teacher too, a headteacher. And she told me about this special language unit. We might still be able to get Rebecca in it this year. She’d need to go to a place called a child development centre first –’

  ‘At a crèche she will play quite happily. Is no assessments, I do not think. Just water and sands. I will tell them she is very, very quiet . . .’

  My hand is tingling. It’s adamant it wants to thump him. ‘Abdi, you have to face up to this. It’s great you’re moving on – but what about Rebecca? You’ve lost your wife, but she’s lost her mummy.’ I hear my voice quaver a wee bit as I teeter, then dip on wine-soaked rails into . . . I dunno. A rollercoaster of prim self-pity, a Hollywood speech? ‘Believe me, I know what it feels like when someone who’s your whole life just isn’t there any more. It tears you apart –’

  ‘Thank you, Deborah.’ He takes my hand and kisses it. Refusing to let me upset his equilibrium. And I know what he’s going to ask me now, and I know I’m going to say yes. I want to.

  ‘From my heart. You have made so big changes to me. I trust you. I hope you trust me.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  I wait for the request, smooth out my poker-face. Please will you watch Rebecca on the other day? But it doesn’t come.

  ‘Why do you think we were matched? Is it because you have lost your husband and I my wife? Did you ask for this? For a lonely man? Because sometimes I think it is that you project your emotions on to me.’

  ‘Project my emotions?’

  ‘Yes. Like I am your mirror. If you feel a certain way you think that I will too. I am grateful for my life, Deborah. I do not want to look backwards, only forward. Rebecca will do the same.’

  ‘Well, that’s just bullshit.’

  ‘Is it?’

  I am furious. ‘Why? Did you have a choice about me?’

  ‘I had a choice to say no.’ He takes a sip of wine. ‘And then I met you, and I said yes. But you have not answered me.’

  I am in a dark beer-stained tunnel whizzing far too fast. This insistence on honesty, who started it again? ‘No, I did not ask for a lonely-hearts date, if that’s what you’re implying. In fact, do you want to know how I got you? Do you really bloody want to know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK then. I asked that it could be someone from Africa.’

  ‘Why Africa?’

  I change my position. The light’s shining directly in my eyes. The sly wine gleams in my glass as I lift it, see the greasy slide of it up and down, up and down. Push-me, pull-you. Suddenly I find it very vitale to do this, to be horribly, plainly honest.

  ‘Some of my husband’s family were from Africa . . .’

  Abdi’s eyes widen. I imagine his chest expanding, poised to welcome me as one of his own.

  ‘South Africa. White, not black.’

  He makes that eloquent Ah that he does.

  ‘Yeah, so. I spent some time there when I was younger. Just a month, you know?’ I drain my glass. At the bottom, in the dregs, fragments of my steak pie rest.

  Know the worst of me, then see what’s left.

  ‘I didn’t like what I saw.’

  The woman flourished her feather wand, and all her clothes fell off. Nothing but a golden G-string to cover her modesty. The crowd clapped furiously, even Callum and his pinched, prudent mum, but I was embarrassed for the poor soul up on stage. She had a lovely voice, had pretty much been the star of the show, while all around her topless girls danced and pranced the night away – a plume of ostrich feathers each and the spindliest of heels giving them their stature. The woman’s nipples were also clad in gold, and I wondered what she felt as she painted them on in her dressing room. Was this, for her, the grand finale, or the denouement she’d been dreading? Gold tips waiting under that gorgeous dress?

  ‘Wow, what a show!’ Callum beamed at me, and I at him, conscious his mother was watching.

  ‘Well. Shall we go for suppa now, my boy?’ Myra cut between us, stroking my husband’s cheek. ‘Fatten you up a little, hu? They do terrific steak here. Oh, isn’t Sun City marvellous?’

  Callum saved his broadest smile for her. I took his arm, squeezed until he returned his attention to me. That was one of the very few pa
rts of Callum that stayed, right until the end. His smile. On our good days, I’d call him my Cheshire Cat, and he’d elongate it further, till the tilt of his cheek met the droop of his eyes. But then, there, it was strong and full, it was lips that searched mine and pushed in hard and I loved them. Just the look of them, knowing they were mine, what they had whispered to me last.

  ‘Can we just head home, Ma? I think Debs is a little tired.’

  Immediately, Myra’s eyes slid from him to me. ‘Oh. What a shame. We’d planned to make a real evening of it.’

  ‘But we still can, Ma. How about we go home and you make us some of your fantastic vetkoek?’

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ I said, squeezing ever harder. Why were men so stupid? Vetkoek were greasy dough balls that she insisted on stuffing with some kind of curried meat. I think it was beef, but I was scared to ask.

  ‘You don’t like my vetkoek, Debs? Shame. I was going to show you how to make them for my boy.’

  ‘No, I love it.’ I’ve had them twice already since we got here. ‘It’s just – everything makes me feel sick at the moment.’

  Going for the sympathy vote here. You too were a woman once, Myra.

  ‘Ach. Everyone moans about the sickness. Me, I was fine, fine, fine. You just have to get on with it, Debs. That’s what life’s about, you know.’

  Callum returned my squeeze. I think he thought I was being affectionate. ‘Remember Debs isn’t used to the heat, Ma.’

  ‘Tchu.’ She clacked her tongue. ‘You should be here when it’s really hot. My! Even my house-girl scuttles into the shade, but me, I just keep going.’ She jiggled the cheek of Callum’s father, who had returned from the cloakroom with a pile of jackets. ‘Someone has to run this family, eh?’

  ‘What’s that, darling?’

  An apparently absent-minded, mild man, Callum’s dad seemed to float through life, his wife tethering him to the world. I liked him, hugely. Even Myra mellowed when he came close. He’d been very kind to me since we’d arrived – suggesting we all take things easy, limiting Myra’s mad schedule of braais and excursions to no more than one a day. The odd conspiratorial wink, or an arm offered as we strolled round the garden, suggested that he was actually far more present than absent. He’d clearly decided that, since retiring to South Africa to placate his wife, he’d bob gently on the surface, while she swam with the sharks. Well, it was her natural territory.