Divided City

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘Aw, no way,’ said Joe.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bernie. ‘Otherwise I will.’

  Joe thought quickly. ‘I’ll speak to my Auntie Kathleen.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘We usually go to her house for dinner on a Sunday night. I’ll tell her then.’

  ‘You’d better.’ Bernie stood up. ‘I need to go. The hospital’s been going like a fair all night after that Old Firm game yesterday.’ She ruffled Joe’s hair. ‘I’ll phone sometime next week and see how things are with you.’

  When she’d gone Graham let his breath out in a big sigh. ‘Well, that takes care of that. We can’t have any more to do with Kyoul.’

  ‘How no?’ asked Joe.

  ‘You heard what your cousin said. He’s trouble.’

  ‘Ocht, rubbish. We gave our word to Leanne. We owe it to her to at least try to speak to him.’

  ‘And how are we going to do that?’

  ‘Go and see him. Bernie told us where he is. Ward four hundred and two.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ll ask you that again,’ said Graham. ‘How are we going to do that without getting caught. Or didn’t you hear her? Your cousin also told you that Kyoul was under supervision.’

  ‘At least let’s go and have a look-see.’ Joe indicated the front door. ‘It’s getting busier as folk arrive for visiting time. We’ll mingle with some families and go up to the fourth floor and have a snoop.’

  Chapter 24

  ‘We can do this. No bother.’

  The boys were standing in the corridor outside ward 402, Joe trying to persuade Graham to go in. ‘We’ll attach ourselves to the next group of visitors,’ he said. ‘There’s loads of folk coming and going, and nowadays the hospitals are always short-staffed.’ He manoeuvred Graham through the doors.

  Graham gripped Joe’s arm as he sauntered down the ward.

  ‘I’ll bet it’s that bed right at the far end,’ he muttered nervously. ‘The one with the curtains drawn around it.’

  ‘OK,’ said Joe. ‘You get in behind that curtain and find out.’

  ‘There’s a notice pinned to the curtain,’ said Graham from the corner of his mouth. ‘I can read it from here. It says: NO VISITORS – SEE MEMBER OF STAFF.’

  ‘You could go up to the top of the bed next to his, beyond where the sink is on the wall, and edge your way in,’ suggested Joe.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll keep guard for you. If anybody comes I’ll start whistling.’ Joe made a face at Graham. ‘I’ll make it The Sash if you like.’

  ‘Very funny,’ said Graham. ‘You won’t be able to get away with standing about the ward. Someone’s bound to ask what you’re up to.’

  ‘I won’t just be standing about. Look, there’s a man in the bed next to Kyoul. I’ll give him a wee visit.’

  ‘You can’t just sit down and start talking to somebody you’ve never met before.’

  ‘How no?’

  ‘He might call a nurse.’

  ‘It’ll be OK.’

  ‘How’ll it be OK? He doesn’t know you.’

  ‘I’ll just say I’m Jimmy’s boy.’

  ‘What makes you think he’ll know somebody called Jimmy?’

  ‘This is Glasgow,’ said Joe. ‘Who doesn’t know somebody called Jimmy?’

  ‘You’re off your head, you are,’ said Graham.

  Joe gave Graham a push. ‘Go on. Walk to the top of that man’s bed where he can’t see you. He’s got his eyes closed the now. I’ll be close behind you. If he wakes up I’ll start talking to him. You keep your eye on the main ward. As soon as you think nobody’s watching, slip behind the curtain and have a quick word with Kyoul.’

  Graham walked reluctantly with Joe to the end of the ward. When they reached the bed next to the one with the drawn curtain Joe propelled Graham in front of him until he was at the top end, close to the curtain of the next bed.

  Joe disentangled one of the two stacked visitors’ chairs and sat down. The man in the bed’s eyes fluttered.

  ‘Mr Sinclair?’ said Joe, reading the name from the piece of card attached to the bed’s headrail.

  Mr Sinclair opened his eyes. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘I’m Jimmy’s boy. He heard you were in the hospital and he sent me over to see you.’

  ‘Jimmy?’ The man in the bed swivelled his eyes slowly and took in Joe. ‘Jimmy?’ he repeated.

  ‘Aye . . . Jimmy,’ said Joe with more emphasis. ‘He told me you used to hang about together. Said you haven’t seen each other for ages, right enough.’

  ‘Oh, that Jimmy.’ The puzzled expression cleared from Mr Sinclair’s face. ‘Oh aye, it’s years since I’ve seen him.’

  Joe nodded encouragingly. ‘He’s no well or he’d have come his self.’

  The man struggled up in bed. ‘See’s my teeth, there, son, would you?’

  Joe heard Graham snigger as he grubbed about on the top of the locker beside the bed looking for Mr Sinclair’s false teeth. Holding the plastic container they were in at arm’s length, Joe handed them over.

  The old man slurped them around his mouth until he had them in a satisfactory position. ‘What’s up with him?’

  ‘What?’ said Joe.

  ‘What’s up with him?’

  ‘What’s up with who?’

  ‘Jimmy. You said he wasn’t well. What’s up with him?’

  ‘Oh right.’ Joe fumbled. ‘Em, he’s . . . it’s his back . . . you know.’

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘He can hardly move.’

  Mr Sinclair shook his head sympathetically. ‘Always had bother with his back, Jimmy, so he did.’

  ‘This is the worst it’s been,’ said Joe. ‘For a while.’

  ‘Does he get out much at all?’

  ‘Emm . . . Em . . .’ Joe groped around. ‘Just to the bowls, like.’

  ‘The bowls!’ Mr Sinclair exclaimed. ‘The bowls? He used to hate the bowls. Said it was a game for big lassies.’

  ‘Aye, well . . .’ Joe flashed his eyes at Graham. Graham gave a tiny wave of his hand and moved closer to the curtain of the neighbouring bed.

  ‘No wonder he’s knackered his back then, if he’s taken up bowls,’ Mr Sinclair observed.

  ‘Aye, well, he watches the games mostly now . . . on the telly, like.’

  ‘Does he? That’s a surprise to me, I’ll tell you. I’d never have taken Jimmy for a bowls man.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Naw. Fifteen year I knew your da. And I never once heard him say a good word about the bowls. It just shows you. You think you know someone, and then they catch you out.’

  ‘Do you like the bowls yourself, Mr Sinclair?’ asked Joe, gesticulating to Graham to get on with it.

  Graham slipped behind the curtain.

  ‘Naw. I’m more into the football.’

  ‘You’re no a Tim, are you?’ said Joe.

  ‘Do I look like a Tim?’ the man asked in horror.

  ‘Aye.’ Joe laughed. ‘But then folk say I do too.’

  ‘Aye, but you do.’

  ‘See what I mean?’ Joe laughed again, more confidently.

  Mr Sinclair joined in the laughter.

  ‘So’ – Joe settled himself in his chair – ‘what did you think of that result yesterday? Eh? Were we robbed, or were we robbed?’

  Chapter 25

  On the other side of the curtain Graham smiled. He knew Joe could talk on the subject of football long enough for him to speak to Kyoul.

  He glanced around and then crept closer to the bed.

  Kyoul lay on his back. His eyes were open and he was staring at the ceiling. There was a drip with a plastic tube connected to his arm. His pyjama top was open, showing his bandaged chest. Suddenly, sensing that he was not alone, he turned his head and his gaze met Graham’s. There was a look of terror on his face.

  ‘Don’t panic.’ Graham held up his hand. ‘It’s only me. Remember? I called the ambulance for you on Friday night.’

  Kyoul fixed a
n expressionless gaze on Graham’s face.

  ‘In the street. Reglan Street,’ Graham said. ‘I was the one who helped you.’

  Recognition and relief flooded Kyoul’s features. ‘Did you find Leanne’s house? Did you speak to her?’ he asked at once.

  Graham nodded. ‘She knows what happened and where you are.’

  Kyoul lifted his head weakly.

  Graham went closer. Leanne had asked him to find out how Kyoul was. He tried to think of some questions suitable for a sick person. ‘How’s it going?’ he whispered. ‘Food OK? Hospital grub’s usually bogging.’

  ‘It is food,’ Kyoul said in a low voice. ‘And this hospital saved my life. When I left my village there were few medical services. You don’t realize it, but here in the West you have so much.’

  ‘I guess we have,’ said Graham.

  ‘You gave Leanne her phone?’ Kyoul asked him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Graham. ‘I went to her house yesterday and gave it to her.’

  ‘Her parents? Did they find out about me?’

  Graham shook his head. ‘They’d gone out for the day.’

  Kyoul waited a moment before saying, ‘And she gave you the money?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Graham.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kyoul. ‘I thought you might not do it, even for the money.’ He looked at Graham more intently. ‘So why have you come here, to the hospital?’

  ‘Leanne asked me to give you a message. She’s worried you might tell them something and then you’ll get deported. She says you’ve to hang on, say nothing, and she’ll find a way to help you.’

  ‘And you agreed to do this for her? For us?’ said Kyoul. There was a note of caution in his voice. ‘It must have been difficult for you to find me in the hospital. How did you do it? And why?’

  ‘Someone’s helping me,’ said Graham. ‘Someone we can trust,’ he added quickly as he saw Kyoul’s look of alarm. ‘I came because Leanne was so worried about you. And – and she didn’t have enough money on her yesterday, so she said she’d give me the rest when I saw her after I’d spoken to you again.’

  ‘Ah yes.’ Kyoul leaned back on the bed. ‘Money.’ Against the pillow his face was grey, the stubble of his beard a black smudge. ‘Always, it comes down to money.’

  ‘No,’ said Graham. His face went red. ‘It wasn’t only that. Leanne was really upset, that’s the reason I came, and . . . I was too. I wanted to make sure you were OK.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I insulted you,’ said Kyoul. ‘I didn’t mean it. It’s just that I hear people say foreigners are leaving their own countries to take free benefits from others. Maybe some do, but it isn’t the case for most of us.’

  ‘I didn’t know much about asylum seekers,’ said Graham, ‘but Leanne told us a bit about you.’

  ‘Did she?’ Kyoul looked wary. He pulled his pyjama jacket together. But not before Graham had seen the crisscrossing red and purple weals and small circular marks that covered his chest.

  He frowned. ‘What happened to you?’

  Kyoul made a small movement of his head. ‘I am a Muslim. In a country where it is no longer safe to be so. Religion. I believe that was the reason.’ He sighed. ‘But now I think there are those who will find any excuse to torture and kill. So it’s good to have a scapegoat. Someone to blame for all your troubles.’

  Torture – the word crashed around Graham’s head. Kyoul had been tortured.

  * * *

  On his side of the curtain Joe was in difficulty. Two people, a man and a woman, were approaching Mr Sinclair’s bed.

  ‘There’s my sister and her man,’ Mr Sinclair said, looking beyond Joe’s head. ‘Coupla moaners, come to give me their weekly grudged visit.’

  Joe scrambled to his feet. The sick he could deal with. These two might be a bit more on the ball.

  ‘Haud on, son, haud on.’ Mr Sinclair indicated for Joe to stay. ‘This is Joe,’ he said to the woman. ‘Jimmy’s boy. Remember Jimmy? We used to go to the dogs together.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ the woman said vaguely. ‘I mind him . . . I think. How is your dad?’

  ‘Och, he has his good days and his bad days,’ replied Joe truthfully.

  ‘Me too, son. Me too.’ She sat down heavily. ‘I’ll take the weight off my feet here. I’m done in. This hospital’s miles away for us and we don’t have a car.’ She scowled at her brother lying in the bed. ‘Takes us hours to get here, by the way.’

  ‘Aye. So it does,’ said her husband. ‘Standing at bus stops in the pouring rain.’

  ‘It’s no raining the day,’ said Mr Sinclair. ‘Is it, Joe?’

  ‘That’s no the point,’ said the woman. ‘Me and my man here, we’re no as young as we used to be. And we cannae afford—’

  ‘I need to go now,’ Joe interrupted, shoving his own seat at her husband. ‘I’ll need to go,’ he said more loudly, hoping that Graham would hear him. ‘I need to go a message for my dad.’ He flapped his hand at Mr Sinclair.

  ‘You tell him I was asking for him,’ said Mr Sinclair.

  ‘Aye, mind and tell him,’ said the woman.

  ‘Aye. Right.’ Joe backed off, trying to sustain the conversation, while keeping watch for any staff and an eye on the next bed. He wondered if Graham had heard him. There was no sign of any movement from behind the curtain. Then he spotted Graham walking up the ward towards the exit door.

  ‘How did you sneak out so easily?’ Joe asked him as he caught up with him on the staircase.

  ‘Because Kyoul’s bed’s at the end of the ward, one side of the curtain is right next the toilets and there’s two entrances to them,’ said Graham. ‘I walked through and came out on the far side of the ward.’ He shook his head as he looked at Joe. ‘I had to leave or you’d have been yapping on all day. You were getting carried away with your own story there. That poor man’s in hospital, sick, and he gets you to put up with.’

  ‘Listen, I made his day,’ said Joe. ‘Gave him something to talk about. And now that he’s a mate of mine it means we can go back.’

  Graham gave Joe a startled look.

  ‘There’s no way we’re going back,’ he said.

  Chapter 26

  In the City Hospital Kyoul rested his head against his pillows.

  His heart was racing. Seeing the boy again had triggered his memory of Friday night. He closed his eyes and let the noise of the ward calm him. Even the sounds from the toilets and the sluice room close to his bed reassured him. Ordinary noises. Beyond his curtain he could hear a child laughing. People talking freely.

  Freely.

  Here everything was normal. A simple act of foolishness and he might now lose it all.

  Friday night, on his way to meet Leanne, he’d been late. A trader who sometimes gave him work offered him extra to help unload some delivery vans in the evening. It meant he’d have a pound or two more. He would never allow Leanne to pay for anything. Not even a cup of coffee. So he’d agreed to do the job, and then rushed to meet her. Not wanting to keep her waiting, and knowing that they’d only have an hour together as her parents didn’t allow her out late at night, he’d taken the short cut. Some older boys were gathered at the top of Reglan Street. Kyoul had known right away that they were trouble. Angry energy spilled out from their faces. One grabbed his arm as he passed.

  ‘Asylum seeker?’

  Kyoul said nothing. Tried to go on.

  The guy grinned at him. Lifted his shirt. Shown him the knife tucked in his belt.

  ‘I’d run if I were you.’

  In the hospital he sometimes cried out in the night. The man in the next bed, Peter Sinclair, would shout over, ‘Press your call button, son.’

  Kyoul always shook his head. ‘No.’

  He’d learned not to call for help. Many times he’d called out in his own language for mercy. It was a useless thing to do. It seemed to inflame his torturers. That’s why he’d not struggled when the gang had dragged him from the close entrance and begun to beat him.

  He’d said
nothing. Tried to curl up, as he’d learned to do in the past, in order to protect himself against the boots and clubs. He’d not felt the knife go in. Only suddenly there was blood. The youths had run then. And he might have died in the street if the young boy had not telephoned for help.

  He didn’t know his name. Kyoul’s eyes blinked open as he realized that he hadn’t even asked the boy his name this second time they’d met. The boy wasn’t all that much younger than he was. Yet older than Kyoul had been when war had come to his village. The war that had destroyed his life, killed his family, made his existence so unsafe: to be a Muslim male of a certain age meant that walking on the street was a hazard. He’d become a target. The last time he’d been interrogated one of his torturers spat in his face and told him that the next time they met would be the last.

  He didn’t have the resources to get out of his country. The people smugglers were highly organized. He couldn’t pay their fee. One day he found himself walking west, following the setting sun. That night he slept in a ditch. The next day when he awoke he kept walking. Afterwards he couldn’t recall making a decision to do this. But each day he walked in the same direction. In order to eat and pass through borders he’d had to do things he didn’t want to think of now. Eventually he’d reached one of the big Red Cross camps. He’d been there for weeks when he met some relatives. They’d paid the smugglers to take all their family, but one of the children had died on the journey. They gave Kyoul the child’s place, on the understanding that he was strictly on his own when they got into whatever country they were taken to.

  He’d been bundled out of a lorry onto a motorway in the middle of the night. He’d no idea where he was. Saw the distant tower blocks and spires of a city, and once again began to walk.

  He got into George Square on a cold morning in early spring. Hunger had made him feeble. He sat hunched on a bench and watched the city awake. Dawn unmasked the anonymous bulk of the buildings that framed the square and revealed their elegance. The perfume from the hyacinth beds was rising with the sun. Giddy with the intense blue of the flowers, the smell of the scent, the clarity of the air, Kyoul felt a happiness that he’d not experienced for a long time. As he began to know Scotland it reminded him of his own country. The way it had been once. A land of intense beauty, hard winters, triumphant greenery in spring. The city had so many parks. He spent lots of time there. It was how the city got its name, Leanne explained to him. Glas-gow – it meant ‘the dear green place’. She told him the story of the symbols on the city coat of arms – the Bell, the Fish, the Bird and the Tree. He loved the parks: Alexandra Park, Linn Park, Victoria Park, the Winter Gardens at the People’s Palace, Hogganfield Loch, Bellahouston, Kelvingrove, Rouken Glen. He liked the buildings too, the variety of the material, their colour – warm honey, pale cream, red sandstone, grey granite that picked up the clear northern light.