This Is Where I Am

by Karen Campbell

  ‘He’s just leaving?’

  ‘Ha! No. We are not long arrived.’

  ‘Really?’ She has seen the beer cans.

  ‘We have been to the supermarket. And, the very good news is – I have got Dexy a job!’

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘My apprenticeship is not yet filled, so I asked Mr Maloney, and he says he will ask –’

  She darkens even more. ‘Abdi, I got you that job. As a favour.’

  ‘Indeed? It was not because I was a good fishman then?’

  ‘No, what I mean is, you should have come to me. I could have spoken to my brother-in-law.’

  ‘But I wanted to do this. I said I would help. And I have.’

  Dexy expels a beery burp. ‘Listen to the man, doll. We’re doin fine without you. Chillax!’ He grins at Rebecca. ‘Will we give your auntie a wee beer?’

  ‘Rebecca.’ Debs throws her purse into her opened handbag. ‘Do you want to come with me and we’ll get your overnight bag packed? I’m assuming Aabo’s been far too busy entertaining to sort it?’

  Guilt and belligerence poise on the corners of my mouth. Turn one way, see her face, and this is what I will say. Turn the other, see him, and I will have to say –

  So I say nothing.

  Debs and Rebecca disappear. Is it my imagination or does Rebecca mimic the surly flounce of her mentor? My mentor, who has in fact dropped her purse as she flounces. And her mobile phone. I pick them up, lay them on the mantelpiece, right next to Jesus on the cross. Pour from the can into my glass. Glug, glug, glug. See it cloud and form and separate. The amber light, the friendly froth. Why would God not want us to enjoy this lovely stuff?

  ‘Man. You shagging that?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Dexy makes a lewd gesture, pushing the finger of one hand through a circle he makes with his other hand.

  ‘No! Debs is my friend.’

  ‘Aye right. Some friend. Keep your baws in her handbag, does she?’

  ‘She is a very good friend.’

  ‘Aye well. Takes allsorts. Anyway. Here’s to you, ma man. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  The beer is a little stale. But the fact of my good deed warms me hugely. Maybe I didn’t explain it well enough to Deborah. I go to find them. Rebecca is in her room, carefully folding her pyjamas.

  ‘Hey, mucky. Where’s Debs?’

  She shrugs at me, and it is at me, my extrasensory powers of perception have not confused this. As I go out, Debs is coming in, her hand stuffing something in her bag. The something crinkles, as paper would.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘My handbag?’

  ‘No, what you put inside.’

  ‘Why? Do you think I’m robbing you or something?’

  She is so brittle and bright. Snap-snap teeth. I have done nothing wrong.

  ‘I only asked.’

  ‘If you must know, it was a sanitary towel. For when women bleed?’

  Aghastmortifiedhumiliatedmute a slug who drags its abject body away from harm’s way. Back to my living room, my beer. My pal, who is picking his ear, then wiping it on the topmost cushion of the couch. I get a plastic bag from the kitchen, gather up the beer cans. Soon it will be tea-time and I have one lamb chop and one potato to bake. Maybe I could bulk it out with onions, and do plantains go with that? Dexy is turning up the telly and I am harvesting a can from the mantelpiece – ooh, a little is left, good – and as I do so, Debs’s phone begins to ring. I lift it up, then I think. No. Get it yourself.

  I finish the beer in the can. Has my new house ever been this full before? Close my eyes so I can hear the noise of mother and child as they laugh, as they are. As they are not. But it is laughter and a tenderness is there. My daughter uses a different voice to Deborah, one full of enquiry and need. Open my eyes. Who would have thought that Abdi Hassan would have a house of high bricks and women laughing again? On my couch, Dexy stretches, gently farts. Another expulsion a minute later, it’s the quizzical noise of a text coming through.

  Re our trip. Pal of mine on project spkn to man who says yes. R

  I drop the phone as Debs returns to the living room.

  ‘ ’Scuse me.’ Deliberately, I think, she nudges Dexy’s feet as she passes. Her tone is . . . tart. This is a new word I’ve learned, and I love its clever playfulness, how it mimics the sensation of sour rhubarb which is in a tart and sour expression which is in Deborah.

  ‘Abdi, have you seen Rebecca’s slippers? I can’t –’

  ‘Awright if I light up, big man?’ An unlit cigarette already wobbles in Dexy’s lips. I want to be a good host, but I don’t want my couch to stink of smoke. Or my daughter.

  ‘This is a no-smoking house,’ says Debs. ‘It’s not good for Rebecca.’

  ‘Fucksake. Who made you queen?’

  ‘No swearing either.’

  Dexy swivels himself to sitting. ‘Ho. Abdi, man. Gonny control your wumman? Either that or gie her wan, because she’s needing something –’

  ‘She is not my woman.’

  ‘She your fucking jailer then?’

  ‘Right, that’s enough, you. Out.’

  ‘Deborah. Please do not speak to my guest like that.’

  ‘Your guest? Abdi, he’s a bloody junkie –’

  ‘Ho! Ho, lady. You cool your jets, you. I’ll have you know I’ve been clean for –’

  ‘Shut up. I wasn’t talking to you. Abdi – a word?’ Debs motions for me to follow her. Dexy picks his teeth. My head is in my neck, I bristle then cower as I slink into the hall. Feel the muscles in my arms grow tight. Wait for her to rub my nose into my mess, for me to whine.

  This is my home. There, that little head peeking from the haven of her doorway. That is my future and my past.

  ‘Why the hell have you got in tow with him?’

  ‘Because I want to help people.’

  ‘Then why not volunteer at the Refugee Council, like I said? Or what about Gamu? D’you think going to a stupid ceilidh and getting some signatures is all it takes? Lobby your MP, do some leafleting – If you want to help folk, think about your own kind.’

  ‘My own kind?’

  I stare into the whiteness of her eyes, a thick gleam in them.

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ she says. ‘I mean refugees, folk who’ve struggled . . .’

  ‘Maybe Dexy is my own kind, huh?’

  ‘Oh really? A junkie arsehole who skives and scrounges his way through life?’

  ‘You know nothing about him.’

  ‘I know he’s no good. And I don’t want him anywhere near Rebecca. Have you forgotten you’re still under Social Work supervision?’

  ‘Have you forgotten this is my house? And that Rebecca is my daughter?’

  Blotches on her throat and neck. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Stop trying to control me. I am not your pet, Deborah. Nor your puppet. And I’m not some poor black boy you are trying to bring back to life.’

  Slow

  Motion

  Strike.

  We reel and dip. Her hand across my face. I let it come. Let it be firm and fleshly and explode. I feel the fallout burst across my cheekbone. Hold it.

  ‘You utter bastard.’

  ‘Debba!’

  Extending the same hand to my baby. ‘Come on, Rebecca. Let’s go.’

  ‘No. She is staying here with me.’

  ‘Oh no she’s not.’

  ‘You want me to make her choose? Huh? Hey, Rebecca – who do you love more?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Abdi!’

  Rebecca is terrified. An empty appeal hangs in her outstretched arms; Debs is there, scooping her up, gripping my wriggling fish until she flops. Rebecca rests her chin on Deborah’s shoulder and regards me. It is the last look of Azira. She cradles my girl, and I can see how long her legs have become; they dangle down to almost Az to Debs’s shins. Her own mother would not recognise her. Fucking beer and pills and talking and the window. My winking kitchen window that is wide and high if
I run and run I could crash straight through. The sweet downdrift would wring the breath from inside me and I could scatter myself like seeds.

  I could, you know. Plenty of ‘my kind’ do.

  ‘OK, OK. Ssh. Aabo and I are just being silly.’ Debs kisses Rebecca’s forehead. ‘Aren’t we?’

  ‘Please leave.’

  ‘No!’ wails Rebecca.

  ‘Look, honey. I’m going to go now, but I’ll see you very soon, all right?’

  A sniff. ‘For soft-play?’

  ‘Yes – oh! No. God, no I can’t this week. I’m sorry. Debba’s going away for a few days.’

  ‘Away where?’

  ‘Just for a wee holiday. Abdi, I’m sorry. I meant to say . . .’

  ‘Can I not come?’

  ‘No, pet. I’m sorry –’

  ‘Deborah is going to meet men, I think. That is why you cannot go.’

  ‘Have you gone mental?’

  There is a pause.

  I let my voice roll out until it hits her. ‘Yes. Yes, in fact, I think that is exactly what my diagnosis was. But thank you for reminding me.’

  Then Debs is crying and Rebecca is crying.

  Stupid, ugly refugee.

  ‘Ho! Gonny keep the noise doon, folks? I canny hear Countdown.’

  ‘Please.’ I open my arms. Debs relinquishes Rebecca without a fight. Oh, my girl is heavy. How did she get so heavy? I try to cradle her like Debs was doing, but her body is rigid and mine has no hips.

  ‘I will see you very soon, I promise,’ Debs says to the fierce hot head beside mine. Then she brings her face closer, until I can taste her breath. ‘You better watch, Abdi. Cause see if Social Work know he’s here –’

  ‘He is not staying.’

  ‘Good.’

  A press of anticipation. Speak, speak do not speak swelling. I am trying to control this as I would steer the sea, abdicating to its strenuous insistence. I believe it is called going with the flow. Or is that too casual? Perhaps it is when you say weathering the storm, the hallway flooding with a silent so? But Debs seems to have decided I, we, Dexy are not deserving of further censure.

  ‘Right. Well. I’ll be off then.’

  ‘Do not forget your phone. You dropped it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Is on the mantelpiece. And your purse.’

  ‘My purse? You left . . .’ She does a little sigh, and her perfume flutters. Another kiss for Rebecca, then she goes to fetch her things. I hear Dexy mutter fucksake, hear a low murmur in response, and then she is gone.

  Later, four beers later, I get rid of Dexy. It seems he had planned to sleep on the couch. Rebecca, thankfully, is in her bed. Took no dinner, and has refused to speak to me since Debs left. I wished Dexy had gone then. I need to wall myself in for the night. Stones in my skull, our fight clacking and colliding. I think I might phone Deborah. I was not fair to her. Dexy, though, is coiling himself around me. What do I fear most? Loneliness or . . . this.

  ‘I can’t accommodate you, my friend. Sorry. I have the Social Work lady coming later.’

  Glib lies spilling. How civilised I am become.

  ‘So? I’ll be good. C’n rely on Dexy, pal,’ he slurs. ‘Brand new, so’n I am.’

  ‘Ah, but I am not allowed to have guests to stay.’

  ‘How no?’

  I finger the little bread knife I had used to make us sandwiches.

  ‘I can go a little crazy sometimes. With the knives.’

  ‘Aye, very good.’

  ‘And I threw a man downstairs. An old man.’

  I harden. Make live wires of madness crackle. It is easy: merely involves the unpeeling of your soul, so that you are shiny and base. I smile, he smiles. Tapers and drips. Then musters himself.

  ‘Ach, we’re all a bit fucked in the heid department, pal. Fact, you’re more fucked-up if you think you’re no. Anyway,’ Dexy slaps his knees, ‘if it’s all the same wi you, think I’ll be headin. Big date wi a park bench, know?’

  ‘Ah, but soon you will be in gainful employment.’

  ‘Oh, aye. That.’

  I bolt and lock the door behind him. Haze of beer and exhaustion. Will phone Debs tomorrow, after college. All I want is bed. Remember to check my hungry daughter, who is sleeping on her face. I turn her, gently, find my own room. Bed unmade. Climb in. Forget to pray. Just lie.

  And lie and lie.

  How are you feeling?

  Better, thank you.

  No, talking does not ‘help’. Tapping my brow does not eradicate my visions. These pills, these pills and beer are symptoms of my weakness. Tomorrow, I will pour them in the toilet with the turds. I lie on my side, feel the blackness slide with me. My bedroom has blackout blinds; initially, I found them oppressive, but now I cannot sleep if they are not tight-sealed.

  I am truly Scottish, see? I have perfected negative positivity. That and swearing.

  What will become of me?

  I just lie. Just stare at the smooth unyielding dark.

  I am too big for my cloistered world. As a young, happy man, I had life. I knew my place, and knew I wanted more. Each day a spring to drink from, no I was the spring, bubbling forth and reaching for the sky. But now there is a rock perpetually laid upon me, crushing, blocking out the light.

  To die would be to desert my daughter.

  That is the only reason. Not your stupid fucking tapping on my skull.

  Oh. I am. I’m drumming again. Fingers on belly, on my thighs. My counsellor told me I must write motivational notes. Put them in my sock drawer, so I commence each day with an endorsement to survive it. Debs threatened to phone his supervisor; I told her just to laugh. I cannot be without Debs and I am thrusting her away. Drumming again. Fingers on my groin.

  Sleep is unkind, she will not come. Azira does, although I fight to keep her out, but she shivers in on drunken lust and tight-strung brainwaves that soothe when she is near. She curls into my back, is hot, burning hot in the black, black sun her hands on mine whispering here I am, baby.

  I am so lonely, I whisper back. Willing her long slightness against me, bunching the covers up until they are a solid mass, each fold a leg, an arm, a breast. My hand her hand, the grip of her holding me, tentative, giggling, me firmer in the rhythm, the difference of her breath. Delight as I lessen and she quickens.

  This is not my hand.

  This is not.

  I am a stupid refugee.

  Azira, I whisper. I do not have her face. It is slipping, slipping. No possessions, no clothes, no books. Wân ku jecelahay. I no longer know what language I think in, but this is always the same. Distant, sharp, other – because it is her. I do not have a single image of my wife, not one thing that she is in or has touched. I wonder, was she ever real?

  I wither. All the room is fading in the dark. What is real? Your taste, your words for ever? Things we know but have not seen? Only substances we can touch? Sounds that are the same, yet have no connection? Real and reel: to be the truth. To bring in fishes and to faint.

  Have you swallowed a dictionary, son? Mrs Coutts has come to join us.

  I lie. Just lie. Watching myriad rainbows burst. Breathe in oxygen and panic. Panic drumming panic winning my hand reaching for the light switch. GOLD. Eyes screw, then widen. Over there, between the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. My stolen red backpack. My recycled backpack, containing all my papers. Give a refugee some papers and he is rich. Azira is in there. Of course she is. When Father Paolo baptised Rebecca, he blessed our marriage too. We both signed our names on the certificate. Azira had practised for days, embellishing her swirling instroke on the A, the loops uniting each letter into a word. Floorboards creaking with my bones. I get my backpack, will be calm when I can . . . no, it’s not a backpack. Deborah says rucksack, I think backpack must be a childish word, rucksack is rougher, and I tug the straps to me . . . but it’s lying open. I never leave it open. Look how easily Debs’s phone slid away from her. Whatifwhat if? I shake the bag, upturn it. Count carefully through all
my correspondence. Letters from Home Office, Refugee Council, Housing. Department of no-Work and Pensions, my clinic, my counsellor, my doctor. And this and – no –. No. NO. The blessing parchment and Rebecca’s baptismal certificate are missing.

  I check, recheck. But they are gone.

  21. November

  Dadaab

  Dadaab is a semi-arid town in north-east Kenya, but is also the collective name for the three refugee camps surrounding the town, known individually as Hagadera, Ifo and Dagahaley. Covering 50 square kilometres, the camps developed in this crisis-torn region in 1991, and have since become home to over 400,000 refugees. The vast majority are fleeing from civil war in neighbouring Somalia, although there are also refugees from Sudan, Uganda and the Congo.

  Designed originally to accommodate around 90,000 people, the camps – which are served by a United Nations (UNHCR) base – suffer hugely from overcrowding and lack of resources. A further increase in violence in Somalia, coupled with ongoing famine, has seen an influx of up to 1,000 refugees a day. The area around Dadaab has suffered severe drought in recent years, killing livestock and severely impacting on the local economy and landscape, with food, fuel and building materials in constant demand. Growing tension between refugees and locals means that, as the camps are not officially demarcated, disputes over water, land and safety are common.

  Several international humanitarian organisations deliver both emergency relief and long-term solutions, including food distribution, sanitation, counselling, training, health care, economic development and education. This vital work is only possible through the generous donations of supporters.

  With many people living in the camps for up to ten years, much of Dadaab’s economy now revolves around the provision of services for refugees.

  *

  Everything is gone! Stolen!

  Calm down, Abdi. Slow down and tell me what’s wrong.

  Abdi’s cries, my duplicity, drilling in my ears as the flat stone earth drills up from our tyres, sending tremors through the soles of my feet, my knee-joints, my bored-through back. We’re on what’s supposedly the main road: it is a crude track of rutted dust. Refusing to yield. I am here. You chose to pass over me.