Bridge 108

by Anne Charnock

  All that time in the Liverpool facility, I didn’t say anything in my interviews about Ma Lexie because I worried that any information about Ma Lexie could link me with the block of flats across the street, and with Odette. I’d convinced myself that Odette had murdered her janitor. Or at least, Odette left her for dead. Instead, I told Farquharson exactly what I told the police, that I worked in Jaspar’s recycling yard. Truth is, I’d only seen Jaspar a couple of times when he came to the roof to see Ma Lexie, but I saw enough to describe him. I told Farquharson I couldn’t describe the person who trafficked me to Jaspar because everything happened at night-time. It didn’t feel right shopping Skylark. I don’t know why. So I only told the policewoman and Farquharson about Skylark’s jacket with the feathers.

  Looking back, those months in Liverpool blur into one repeated day. I tried to avoid talking to other people. The more I talked, I decided, the more chance I had of saying something careless. I was sure some of the migrants were reporting on one another. And all the time I expected news to break. I worried that Odette would be caught, and she might say I’d helped her escape, that I knew she planned to attack her boss. Even if she had good reasons for murdering her boss, I didn’t want the finger pointing at me.

  Officer Farquharson never came back to me to say they’d found a DNA match. I hoped every time I saw her that she’d have news, but then I felt relieved when she didn’t. I didn’t know what I wanted. What made me angry, and still does, is that Mother didn’t do her homework. If we’d arrived together at a reception centre, we’d have been shipped straight back to Spain, like Jerome said.

  In one big way, the Liverpool centre was better than here. There were girls. Our dormitories, canteens and recreation rooms were separate, but we mixed together outdoors. That’s why, even as winter started, we stayed outside until the last second of outdoor rec. And even though I played shy—because girls make better spies than boys—we all had a laugh together, and one of the Italian girls started to hang out with me, like she fancied me. But I didn’t dare trust her.

  Arriving here, discovering the indenture camp was male only, that was a shock. Families were split up, and I felt pleased it didn’t affect me. Fights broke out over nothing. Lots of anger and no way to burn it off. But the guards came down heavy—shock prods, isolation cells, chemical sleeps—and that’s probably why we have escape attempts among the new arrivals, and from time to time a suicide. I wish they’d wait, give the place a chance. I swear to God, what really annoys me is when an older migrant commits suicide, because that’s setting a real bad example.

  I’m not as angry as I used to be about anything really, and I think the inoculation has properly kicked in. We talk about it, us indentured labourers, because we can all tell the difference, some more than others. I think it explains why we tend to settle in eventually. The inoculations are given to most migrants, but I don’t know how it’s decided. No one explains. But since I’m from Spain, and European law bans the inoculations, I was jabbed straight off, and now I’m feeling different. Like Skylark warned me: “You won’t be the same afterwards. You’ll lose your spark.”

  I’m not sure I mind. I do feel calmer most of the time, and I sleep better. Skylark exaggerated, whereas Mother always spoke in favour. She said, “Why would they put up with troublemakers?” Or something like that. Javier says he feels free, which is a mad thing to say. He says he doesn’t care any more, doesn’t miss his drinking.

  Anyway, it’s done, and I’m due for a booster.

  I push my way through the queue for breakfast, stand next to the new kid. He follows my lead: takes the porridge, milk and eggs. I lead him to a table as far away as possible from the guard because I’ll have to speak in Spanish to the kid. I give the nod to two of my football mates, and they do the same to two more. They join us at our table before anyone else can take the seats. While the canteen staff are making a din serving food, I ask questions in a low voice and pass on the news from the kid, as short bulletins, headlines: More migrants are trying to cross the Channel than last year. The weather is hotter. No rain for two months. France has brought in a new law—full life imprisonment for starting a wildfire. Portugal is talking about execution for arson. We all grunt our approval. My mate, the fullback, says, “The fuckers deserve chopping down.”

  A loud buzzer. We stand immediately. Time for class and we begin to file out. I put my hand on the new kid’s shoulder. Everyone needs a show of kindness when they first arrive, but a pat on the shoulder is as far as it goes. He’ll have to toughen up fast.

  As we make our way to class, I think back to my days back home. I had no idea what was going on in the world. Too young to care or understand. Until I left Spain, all I thought about was finishing my schoolwork and escaping the flat as soon as possible to play football. I didn’t even realise the water shortages were serious until my parents stopped washing our clothes. True, I had to stand for hours in the water queue, swapping places with my mother or father, but my friends did the same. Standing in queues was normal—for everyone.

  Now that I’m older, though, I do ask myself why my parents didn’t act quicker. They followed the news. We should have left sooner as a family, when I was a baby or before I started school, when it was easier to cross borders, when we didn’t need visas.

  That’s what parents are supposed to do. Think ahead and protect their kids.

  Mr. Tuckwell barks, “Scrambled egg on toast. Scrambled egg on toast. After me: Scrambled egg on toast.”

  A spot check on an old vocabulary list, with a new teacher. Half the class struggles with his accent. The way he says “toast,” he sounds like a foghorn. He’s from Lancashire. Truth is, I don’t think he’s a proper teacher. This isn’t how I learned English back in Spain. All he does is talk, and if we don’t understand, he talks louder. Sometimes I wonder if all the hopeless teachers are sent to teach in the camps. Because a good teacher would refuse to work in such a miserable classroom with so many students. If you sit at the back, you can hardly hear. No pictures on the walls. One window facing the fish farm has been cracked since I arrived here, and half the glass fell out last winter. Never fixed. Once the cold weather starts, no one will want to sit near it.

  Sweat trickles down the back of Javier’s neck. He sits on the bench in front of me. He’s nearly thirty, and he’s worked his indentures for fourteen years now. He can’t pass the English tests, spoken or written. I think his hearing isn’t great, which can’t help, so maybe he’ll never get out of here.

  English lessons, five days a week, one hour straight after breakfast. A year after I arrived, admin posted a new rule: Speaking in a language other than English will be punished by an extension in the offender’s indenture term. They brought in that rule overnight. Stress levels hit the roof. But me, I was glad. I hated that thing when a bunch of kids, men, too, stared at you from across the canteen, talked in their own language and laughed loud. A total wind-up. You knew they were having a joke at your expense. That sort of thing led to fights, but I never let it get to me. I sort out my frustrations on the football pitch.

  “Come on then. What else? What else do we eat for breakfast? You!”

  He’s looking straight at me. “Porridge with cold milk, Mr. Tuckwell.”

  “After me, everyone. Porridge with cold milk. Porridge with cold milk.”

  Tuckwell likes us to reply with more than one word. He likes phrases and whole sentences. A single-word reply earns you a clip.

  I don’t complain to anyone. English is easy for me. It’s the weekend culture classes I hate. We’re supposed to have one full day’s rest at the weekend, but culture class eats into our day off by two whole hours. Most of it’s stupid. Like, I learned that English people think the Spanish are rude because we don’t say “please” or “thank you” often enough. We have to memorise all the kings and queens of England—and all the wars they won. Mr. Hannah, our latest culture instructor, says that if we want to live here peacefully and succeed in life, we have to learn f
rom history and leave behind old-fashioned religions and superstitions. He says that this is a modern world, and we must all strive to be modern people. That’s the way we will live together peacefully on this small island. That sounds right to me. I don’t get religion anyway.

  It’s funny though that Mr. Hannah doesn’t like religion, yet he has us chant the ten rules of the camp, like the Ten Commandments. That makes me laugh inside, but I can’t smile. If I’m caught on the classroom cameras, that kind of bad attitude earns a caning. Every lesson starts with a song, the same one, “Jerusalem.” We all shout the lyrics and by the end of the song, I feel stirred up, but relaxed at the same time, like I’ve emptied myself of all my frustrations, and I shout loudest near the end of the song—“I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.” At the end of every lesson, we sing “God Save the King.” It’s so slow and miserable that I leave the classroom feeling down.

  Tanks seven to twelve are sorted. It took half an hour with a team of four to separate the bigger fish. While we’re doing the hard work, the nutrients’ supplier shows up in the warehouse, and he and Holden slip out together. They’ll be doing a deal, and we all pretend we don’t know what’s going on. Truth is, I saw Holden packing a few of the big tilapia that we’d netted. I expect those will be changing hands right now. Maybe that’s the modern man’s way of doing business.

  With the stock tanks running normally, with no fish gasping for oxygen, I check the sedimentation tank, which sits between our operation and the salad stacks. The wastewater from our fish tanks flows through this tank, where the fish poo settles out. Sounds disgusting but this liquid is full of nutrients, so it’s perfect for hydroponics.

  While no one’s looking, I push through the black industrial curtains into the salad lines, lit up so bright. Peppers, salad leaves, herbs, all growing with their roots dangling in long shallow trays, fed with our wastewater. I love it in here. And it’s easier work. If I could get a full-time transfer into here, instead of doing the odd day, I’d understand the whole process.

  “Oy! What are you doing in here?” I turn to see Holden. “You’re wanted. In the admin block at one o’clock. After midday break.”

  He’s taking the piss. Midday break. It’s first-come, first-served when sandwiches are brought to the warehouse. Midday means any time they feel like dishing up. If you’re the last to get there, then you’re likely to find every last sandwich gone. I reckon the fish are better fed than we are.

  So, I’m wanted in admin, and I’m wondering if a lucky break is coming my way. I’m due one because I set things up with the salad technician. I wanted a transfer to his section, and he promised to put in a good word for me, but only after I gave him the silver locket I stole at the vineyard. Immigration let me keep it because I said it belonged to my mother. It helped that I’d cut up the photo of my father and slid the image of his face into the locket. And all these years, I’d held on to it for something important. Honest to God, I hated the sight of the locket, knowing I stole it from a dead woman.

  It’s now three months since the salad technician said he’d request my transfer. But I’m not convinced I can trust him. Suspect he fobbed me off. Still, if he did put in the request, then this could be it.

  No sign of the sandwiches, and it’s time to go. I ask Holden for permission to leave, and he tells me not to waste any time getting back because there’s masses to do before the deliveries tomorrow. I feel like telling him: If he made a flea-sized effort himself we’d have no problem. Just like Mr. Ben at Ma Lexie’s. How does it happen? How do the lazy bastards get these jobs? Or did they work hard only until they got promotion? Like the promotion is the endgame.

  The admin blocks are all single storey. Most of them were thrown up as the camp expanded with each wave of migrants. The site looks as if a child has tossed building bricks across the ground. The first blocks, brightly coloured at one time, have faded in the sun. The newer ones are all shades of grubby grey; no one’s pretending this is a fun place to spend a few years.

  The steel door to the labour administration block has been repainted blue since I last reported here. The maintenance crew didn’t bother to paint the words “Labour Administration” in a different colour, but I can see the shape of the letters underneath, despite the paint runs. This is the office for us labourers, and it’s tucked away at the scruffiest end of the admin blocks. I tug open the door. It scrapes across the concrete, and I’m reminded of the night on Ma Lexie’s roof. Takes me right back to that moment when I carefully eased open the roof door, trying not to wake her or the boys. It seems a long time ago, and I wish I could turn back the clock, close that door and stay there on the roof. But I have to keep going forward and show everyone I want to make a success of myself. Today could be a big step in the right direction.

  A camp auxiliary sits at a grey metal desk with a dent in its side panel. He looks up. I tell him I’ve been told to report here, and he tells me to sit and wait. The walls are bare, the bench hard and the floor gritty. Two minutes later an alert on his screen catches his attention. “Room Seven,” he tells me.

  Before today, I’d reported to Room Three, which is the labour superintendent’s office where new work assignments are handed out. I take slow steps towards Room Seven, trying to imagine what I’m here for if it isn’t about my work reassignment to the salad line. It can’t be an interrogation, because they happen on the opposite side of the camp in a brick building next to the isolation wing. So, what’s this all about? Should I knock?

  I do knock, twice, and wait. After a couple of seconds: “Come in.” A woman’s voice? I push open the door but I don’t step in.

  “Hello, Caleb. Come in. I am Executive Officer Sonia.”

  I enter the room. Who the hell is she? All neat and tidy, but no uniform.

  “You can call me Officer Sonia.” She smiles. “Take a seat. Now, it states here, Caleb, that you have a good command of English, but do tell me if I use a word you don’t understand.”

  I bump into the chair, fall into it rather than sitting down, and the chair shifts on the floor. I straighten up but the chair doesn’t sit flat—one leg is short.

  “You do look much older now.” She shows me her screen: a photo of me taken at the Liverpool Reception Centre just before, or just after, my thirteenth birthday. She’s from immigration?

  “Don’t look so worried, Caleb. I’ve checked your case notes, and I’m here today to revisit the statements you made at the time you handed yourself in. That was a very intelligent decision, wasn’t it?”

  She looks down as though I’m not required to speak.

  My hands are sweating.

  “No regrets, I assume,” she says. “About surrendering?”

  My ears are ringing, and the room side shifts like I might pass out. I shake my head.

  She raises her eyebrows at me. “It’s just paperwork.”

  “Is it about . . . ?”

  “What, Caleb?”

  “Jaspar. Is there a court case? Because it’s a long time ago. I’m not sure I’d remember—”

  “Nothing to do with Jaspar.” She looks at her screen. “Let’s see . . . Jaspar. Ah, here. No court case.” She swipes. “Your word against his in the end. No corroborating evidence.” The soles of my feet are sparking. The total relief! If there’s one bad dream that won’t go away, it’s me meeting Jaspar, and him chasing me.

  “I’m looking into a number of anomalies, of which you are one, Caleb. You have done nothing wrong as such. Your original case officer, Farquharson, is no longer working in the immigration service. I’m going through her case files. And while I’m here at the camp, I’ll be talking with your instructors to check if you’ve adjusted well during the past four years and if you show promise. We have other schemes for migrants who struggle to adapt, migrants who are unlikely to assimilate within the general population. But the indications from your annual updates are good. So let’s get started on these original statements, shall we?”
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  I don’t trust her. Why do my old statements need checking? The process is simple. Finish indentures, pass the English and culture tests. And with my right-to-remain status, I’ll walk out of this place, get a job on the outside, or start a business. Unless there’s a rule change coming. Are they increasing the number of years we have to serve indentures? It’s happened before. Javier told me so.

  For the next hour, I’m forced by this woman, Officer Sonia, to dig into my memories, and it isn’t easy. My head is pounding. I’m terrified of mixing up fact and fiction. They were separated in my mind four years ago, but I haven’t had any warning, and if I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have rehearsed my story as I did with Jerome under the bridge. She goes through my entire history: the journey with my mother through France; how I crossed the English Channel; how I ended up working for Jaspar at the recycling yard; how I escaped. Why did I walk to the vineyards? How did I find my way there? Did someone tell me the vineyards were a good place to hide out? She wanted to know how I avoided being picked up in the vineyard immigration raid. I told her it was luck. I happened to be filling a wine jug at the far side of the courtyard.

  “I’d like a drink of water,” I say.

  “This won’t take long.”

  She doesn’t give me a moment to get myself together, get my head straight. We’re back to the earlier part of the story. Is my father still in Spain? How could I be sure he set off for England in the first place? What proof did I have that my father was dead?