The Lightless Sky

by Gulwali Passarlay

  I hardly recognised him. He was so grown up. As he wrapped me in his arms I couldn’t help tease my big brother, just as I had always done: ‘Hey, you got fat. How did that happen?’

  We spent the day together sharing stories of our journeys. His had been very similar to mine, with lots of going backwards and forwards, but he had spent less time in Istanbul and more in Greece. We also cried together as we thought of our family back in Afghanistan.

  After he left, I thought my heart was going to break all over again. All I could think of now was two things: getting out of Appledore to be with him, and convincing the Home Office I was only thirteen. But bad news was to come.

  I had been refused asylum.

  I had initially been granted discretionary leave to remain for a year, starting from my arrival date of 17 November 2007, due to expire in November 2008. Then, as a result of the incorrect birth date they had given me, they told me I would be seventeen and therefore I would have to leave the country or be deported.

  I was relieved to be able to stay for a year at least – it was better than nothing – but I was still so very angry that the age that was being forced on me was still the same.

  And it had got worse – the latest documents given to me stated: ‘Nationality Unknown.’

  How could they say that?

  The worst blow came when I was refused permission to stay with Hazrat, and told I had to stay in Kent.

  The one piece of good news I received at this time was in March 2008, when I was given a new social worker. She was Iranian by descent, so we could communicate in Farsi as well as in my broken English. That helped. I also felt culturally comfortable with her. I felt the social worker before her may have been a bit racist, and that was why she had been so abrupt with me. Nassi was more supportive, but even she said my situation wasn’t good and that I would probably be deported.

  Through her, social services found me a flat in Gravesend in an accommodation block with other asylum seekers. Mine was nice: a modern, two-bedroom flat. The other occupant was also Afghan, in his late twenties, but he seemed to see me as an annoyance and pretty much ignored me. Living there was noisy, because some of the others played music all night long, and my loneliness intensified. So did the nightmares.

  My flatmate thought my night-time screaming was deliberate and complained about me to Nassi. The humiliation of being told off for something I couldn’t help was the final straw; I had reached my limit.

  The next day I calmly walked into a pharmacy and bought a bottle of paracetamol.

  Then I swallowed them all.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  My flatmate found me unconscious and called an ambulance. At the hospital they gave me something to make me vomit up the pills. My stomach, which had suffered so much already, was in agony as I heaved and retched time and again, vomiting up green bile into a bucket. The hospital staff were kind to me, and I appreciated it.

  I stayed there a few days before being sent back home on my own. My lonely life continued.

  I had no schooling, no work. Days just ran into endless, boring, lonely days. I bought a few books from the local charity shop and used the time to try and improve my English. I also read the Quran, something which always gave me comfort.

  Nassi got me into North West Kent College on a part-time basis to study English, two days a week. I showed the teachers my first ID, which said I was thirteen, telling them I shouldn’t be there and that I should be in school instead. But again, they said they couldn’t help me.

  I attended the college for a couple of months. The other students were, of course, older – all college age – but they too were struggling to adapt to life there. A couple of them were drinking heavily to quell the boredom, or maybe it was a way of self-­medication to numb the trauma. One stopped coming to college suddenly, and we heard he’d been arrested for assaulting someone.

  I think that after having grown up in a rigid cultural system like mine, it can be very tough for new arrivals to cope with the sudden social freedoms that Britain offers. And with no money, it’s hard to keep busy. I received a young person’s allowance of £94 per fortnight, with which I had to buy everything I needed, including bus fares to college. I was good at budgeting and I had learned to be a bargain hunter by seeking out special offers and discounted food in the supermarket, but it was still a struggle.

  I was lucky to have friends. Shafique studied with me at the same college, and came over to visit me often, and that helped, but it had got to the point where I couldn’t cope. I missed my brother so much. Being in the same country as him after all this time but not being near him was torture.

  I used all of my allowance and bought myself a train ticket to Manchester. Once there, I called my social worker, Nassi, and said I wasn’t coming back.

  ‘You have to. You are registered in Kent. This will cause big problems for you. Go and visit your brother by all means, but if you don’t come back I will report you as missing.’

  I couldn’t see how it could get worse.

  I decided that if no one was going to help me, then I had to help myself. In Manchester, I literally walked into a couple of local schools and asked them to accept me. They said their hands were tied and they couldn’t. Once again, I realized that this country has systems; systems I needed to understand before I could challenge them.

  Proving my date of birth was the first step.

  Hazrat and I went to the Afghan embassy in London. I applied for a new passport, giving them my immigration ID card as evidence – the very first one which had my real age on it. I also had to get letters from two other people who could verify who I was and how old I was.

  When I got the passport I sent it to the Home Office as proof, but my plan backfired. The Home Office asked, if I was an asylum seeker, why I was going to my national embassy? But that was a silly question in my case – I hadn’t been persecuted by my government (as many refugees from other places have been, causing them to leave their country and ask for asylum elsewhere). In my case, it had been a combination of the Taliban and the American military which had forced me to flee.

  While I was in Manchester, some of my brother’s friends told me about a place called Starting Point, in nearby Bolton. It was a special educational centre for children who had just arrived in the UK, offering intensive education in basic subjects and English language support.

  I took the bus to Bolton and went there.

  The head teacher, a woman called Katy Kellett, agreed to see me. As I sat in her office drinking a hot chocolate, a feeling of calm washed over me. She made me feel instantly safe as I explained to her my situation, and the age dispute.

  The next words she said changed everything for me: ‘Gulwali, I believe you. You can come here to study.’

  She told me age disputes like mine happened all the time, especially to young asylum seekers in Kent. I could barely contain my joy as she asked the secretary to print me a letter confirming my place there, and get me a new uniform from the school shop.

  I was told I could start the next day.

  Mrs Kellett also promised she would contact Nassi and sort everything out. Her kindness was overwhelming. She then spoke to Manchester Social Services on my behalf and asked them to transfer my care from Kent to them. But they said they couldn’t, telling her that they had had bad experiences of dealing with Kent in the past and wouldn’t get involved. Eventually, I was allowed to stay in Manchester, but I was still officially under the care of Kent – it was very confusing.

  Mrs Kellett was successful in persuading Kent Social Services to get me a place to stay in Manchester. Hazrat had been living with friends, and they had got sick of me being there too. She arranged for me to stay in a place called Bedspace in Hulme, in the south of Manchester. It was similar to the first independent living accommodation in Gravesend – shared flats in a block, and this time my flatmate was a Kashmiri man
in his thirties. Because the Home Office were still insisting I was sixteen and not thirteen, I had to be housed with adults. I had to catch two buses to get to Starting Point each day, but that didn’t bother me. I was just so happy to be able to go there.

  The year 2008 came to an end, and with it passed my fourteenth birthday. For the first time in two years I was beginning to feel like a child again. Starting Point made me school captain, which made me so proud.

  The other children there were from all over the world: some were asylum seekers, others were from families who had moved to the UK to work. The numbers attending the place fluctuated, sometimes it was fifty, sometimes as few as ten. Starting Point became my family. Aside from Mrs Kellett, I had a teacher called Chris Brodie. I loved sitting at the front of her class and raising my hand to ask questions.

  ‘Gulwali, can you keep quiet for just two minutes and let the other children ask a question for once,’ she teased, smiling at my enthusiasm. But I was so determined to learn and to soak up every minute. During break times she used to make me toast and tea and sit and chat with me. I liked her and Mrs Kellett so much – the two of them did so much for me.

  Once a week, Starting Point pupils visited a local old people’s home. I enjoyed it because I loved elderly people – they reminded me of my grandparents. I felt so sad for these old people who had to live there, away from their families. Some had no family at all.

  I think, during this time, I was overwhelmed by it all. After all the battles to survive, I couldn’t quite cope with the fact that my life was now improving. At night I still woke in sweats and tears as the nightmares gripped my soul.

  I tried to kill myself again.

  This time I very nearly succeeded; Hazrat only found me because he came round to visit unexpectedly. He rang 999 and I was rushed to hospital.

  As he cried by my bedside, he made me swear I would never do something so silly again. ‘Did we go through all this just so you could die on me, Gulwali? What will I do if I lose you?’

  I was so unhappy, I probably would have tried to kill myself again. But my mother’s voice saved me. One of Hazrat’s friends had been deported back to Afghanistan, and promised to make contact with our family. He emailed me with a mobile phone number for her, and we were able to speak, for the first time in two years. Just hearing her voice changed everything.

  Starting Point went into battle for me over my age dispute. They observed me in the classroom and carried out their own age assessment on me. They told both Kent Social Services (who I was still listed with) and the Home Office that, in their view, I was a child of fourteen.

  I was by now Starting Point’s longest-serving pupil. Most kids came there for about six weeks, until they got a place at a local school. The whole idea of the centre was to immerse children in education and English language before they moved into mainstream schooling. But until I could prove I was fourteen, no school in the area could take me.

  ‘You will stay here with us until we work this out, Gulwali. If you stay two years then so be it, but we will not let you down,’ Mrs Kellett told me.

  She and Mrs Brodie were the only two adults I believed and trusted.

  Thanks to them I was able to secure a new interview to discuss my claim for asylum and to appeal the decision to reject me. My social worker, Nassi, from Kent was there, but the interview was carried out by Bolton Social Services.

  The meeting was a similar format to the ones I had attended before: five officials sitting around a table with a translator to ask me questions. But this time it could have not have felt more different. This time I had people on my side. Nassi and Mrs Kellet were there, and an advocate from the charity, Action for Children.

  After the meeting, Nassi went back to Kent to file a new report. By now she had my birth certificate and Afghan passport. Kent spoke to Starting Point, saying they were prepared to concede I was younger than they had previously said, but that they wanted me to accept I was born in 1992 not 1994, making me just under sixteen. It was crazy. How could I accept it? That was not my true age. But I found it funny now, and not so upsetting. This new offer meant things were at least beginning to move in the right direction.

  Finally, after a lot of back and forth and pushing from Starting Point, Kent Social Services officially reassessed my age, and accepted what I had told them from the beginning: that my birthday was 11 October 1994. The Home Office also then wrote to me saying that they would reconsider my case.

  It was like being born again – the happiest day of my life. And not long after that, Hazrat was allowed to become my legal guardian and we were able to rent a house together in Bolton.

  Starting Point started to try to find me a school. I was sad to leave the place that had become my sanctuary but I was delighted to finally be allowed to go to a proper school. I was interviewed by Essa Academy in Bolton, by Mr Khaliq.

  ‘Do you think you can cope with this, Gulwali?’ he asked. I already knew him because I had seen him at Starting Point. He always used to joke with me that I’d come to his school one day but that I wasn’t to expect treats like the tea and toast Mrs Brodie made for me.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  There were only two months left of the academic year. I asked them to put me into year 9, the academic year below my actual age group so I could try and use that time to catch up.

  When year 10 began, all of the other pupils were choosing their GCSE subjects. I was very frustrated to be told my English wasn’t good enough for me to be allowed to sit any exams; instead, I was placed in entry-level groups in maths, science, English and other basic subjects. I was also working towards a certificate in care and social work. The school said that without any other qualifications, that would be one of the only future career routes open to me.

  The hardest thing about starting mainstream school was making friends. I had gone from a centre with a maximum of fifty pupils to a school with 1,000 pupils. The other children scared me. I couldn’t understand why some of them didn’t want to learn and messed about instead, being rude to the teachers. I also hated sports and especially loathed getting changed in front of everyone during PE. That was a culturally difficult thing for me to do, and I cringed red with embarrassment as I put on my PE kit, the other boys laughing at my discomfort.

  One of my favourite moments was a school geography trip to Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England. We climbed it. As the other children huffed and puffed and moaned, I strode up like a champion. After so many mountain crosses and treks on my journey, it was a breeze.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Slowly but surely, I settled in and made friends. I was still living with Hazrat. I threw myself into school life and activities, doing my Duke of Edinburgh bronze and silver certificates. As part of this I learnt to swim, which was a huge challenge for me after nearly drowning. After six months of year 10 my English had vastly improved. I went to see the head teacher and persuaded him to let me sit my GCSEs.

  ‘OK, Gulwali, you can take them but don’t be disappointed if you fail them.’

  I chose IT, maths, Urdu, religious studies and geography, as well as the core subjects of English, maths and science.

  I had come so far but I wasn’t there yet. I had stayed in touch with my friend Mrs Brodie from Starting Point; I visited her once a week, and she cooked me dinner. Her family – her husband and two sons – were lovely to me and I loved going there to see them all. One son was a keen rubgy player. I told him I wanted to learn how to play it but that I didn’t want to get hurt.

  ‘Gulwali, I love your enthusiasm, but if you don’t want to get hurt and you hate changing in front of the other boys –’ he laughed – ‘I don’t think rugby is the sport for you.’

  In the second year of my GCSEs I started struggling again. The subjects were hard and my depression was eating away inside me. I decided to try and help myself stay positive by doing something positive for oth
ers.

  The school appointed me the school ambassador for inter­national arrivals. I had been one of those lost, scared children from a foreign land, and I knew how hard it was to fit in. I could assist them. With the help of my teachers, we devised a school plan to give extra moral and academic support to the arrivals, ensuring that immigrant pupils would swim not sink when they got there.

  The plan worked so well that other schools in the area copied it. That made me so proud. I also became a member of the school council and pupil volunteer librarian. For me that was a joy: I would much rather spend my free time in a library than anywhere else.

  In October 2010, when I turned sixteen, Hazrat had to go back to Afghanistan in order to be with my mother and siblings. It was very dangerous for him, but they needed him so he had to risk it. Social services were still officially responsible for me, and they wanted me to either to return to Kent, or to be placed in foster care.

  I had been desperate to be in foster care the year I had arrived, when I was scared and alone, but now I was a star pupil, and I had friends. I had learned to live on my own, yet they were insisting I couldn’t because I was still at school.

  In December 2010, Mrs Brodie drove me to meet a potential foster family. Their house was a large, former vicarage in the countryside near Bolton.

  ‘It’s the middle of nowhere,’ I complained. ‘Let’s just not bother going.’

  As gently encouraging as ever, Mrs Brodie insisted we at least go and meet the family before I made my decision.

  It was very cold and snowing heavily on the day she drove me there. I had by now been living by myself for two months, without Hazrat and with no heating. I think it was the cold that made me agree to go and look at a foster family.

  They were a married couple called Sean and Karen. They had a son of their own, who was grown up and lived away from home. They also had two other foster children, a boy and a girl, both British.