Foreigners

by Caryl Phillips

  In the early seventies, the London Black Panthers began to infiltrate Chapeltown. They kept telling us that things were possible. They insisted that things could be changed, but they made it clear that we couldn't do it openly. They kept mentioning David, and they were very aware of him. Somebody put graffiti about him on a wall. It was near where we would all meet. It just said 'Remember Oluwale'. And we did. We knew that we had to have a strategy, and so we became even more angelic during the day, and then at night we'd go out and do things. His death made us brave. It made us more militant, and it gave us an increased sense of wanting to tease the police. We no longer felt the same about them. We would shout at them. We would throw stones at them and then run off down the backstreets. We knew which houses had cellars that we could dive into and hide, and nobody ever knew what we'd done, or what we were doing. But we couldn't take this rebelliousness back into our homes. It really was like being two people. Once the head of my school called me in and asked me if I would meet with the police as they were trying to become more community-oriented. I went home and told my sister and she looked at me and said, 'No way, absolutely not.' So I had to go back to school and tell the headmaster no. The police were trying to mend the community, but they'd already shown their hand and done something which let us know that our community didn't matter to them. That was how they felt about us. We'd always known it, but now we knew it for sure. We had evidence.

  But David wasn't a West Indian like us, he was a West African so his death didn't galvanise the community in the way that it might have. There would have been even more trouble if he'd been a West Indian. But he wasn't. The area around St Mary's Close had a lot of African students living there. I would sometimes see him on Chapeltown Road walking from that direction down towards Button Hill, and maybe that's why I thought that he was a student. My sister lived at 276 Chapeltown Road. That was when I would see David by Button Hill. At the time she was married to a Nigerian, and he was studying in Liverpool. My brother-in-law used to take the last train to Liverpool and at nights my sister needed help with the twins, so that's when I would go up there, usually between ten and eleven. That's when I would see David. He didn't seem West Indian to look at, so I must have known that he was African. In this period we thought of most of the Africans as people who carried briefcases and who studied hard before getting ready to go back home to Africa. We, the West Indians, were mainly workers not students, and of course we also said that we were going home. But in reality we weren't going anywhere. Few of us ever went back home.

  I called him David, I remember that much. I knew his name. Somebody must have told me his name, but I don't know how I knew it. He struck me as highly intelligent. Not crazy at all. You could see that he had a depth to him. Whatever it was that was inside of him he just kept it to himself. I can remember him looking at me. He had a powerful stare, but I have to admit he did look poor. I thought he was a poorer person than all of us, but as a devout Christian girl I just wanted to give him respect.

  David, do you remember this girl? The fourteen-year-old girl who would walk up Chapeltown Road and see you near the bottom of Button Hill. She knew your name. Your history you kept locked up inside of you. Shut tight, out of sight. But your name, David. She knew your name, and it felt good on her tongue. She smiled and looked into your eyes, and you told her to take care of herself. You waited for her and basked in her smile, and exchanged your few words, and then you watched as she disappeared from view. And then what? She didn't know that you had nowhere else to go. Once she'd passed out of sight you didn't linger for too long. You moved on your way. Perhaps you wondered how you could ask the girl her name without the full weight of the question frightening her away. But in your heart you knew that you would never ask. Did she remind you of somebody? A sister? Your mother? Back home, a long time ago before this nightmare descended upon your young shoulders. Back home, where you spoke of your life in the future tense. Back home, this girl with fine manners and good breeding might have been your wife. You studied hard at your school under the guidance of Christian missionaries. You worked with a burning desire to escape to your future as soon as possible. Your parents loved you, but they recoiled in shame for they knew they could no longer protect you from your ambitions. In their hearts they were proud, but the books that you studied had already carried you beyond them and to a crossroads. They took their place behind you, for history had chosen you and your future was calling. You turned and said farewell to your parents, and then set out on your journey. 1949. Yoruba boy. Going to England to make a life for yourself. Eighteen-year-old Yoruba boy stowing away in the dead of night, trying to make yourself invisible in the belly of a ship bound for England. Leaving home for the rich white man's world. Dark black night. You felt the heaving and creaking of the cargo ship, the Temple Star, as it laboured away from the Lagos quayside and out into the waters that were slick with spilled oil and clogged with debris. You felt the ship rising and falling as it moved beyond this tumult and into the clearer waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Leaving home. Yoruba boy. With your dreams of being an engineer locked up in your young heart. You were unable to come out of hiding and take one final look at the line of lights that illuminated the coastline of your vanishing world. You were unable to wave to your mother. Unable to stand straight like a small, thin manboy and bid farewell to your Nigeria. Unable to promise the wind and the moon and the stars that one day soon you would return as a successful man with a twinkle in your eyes and with England tucked away in your jacket, ready to produce and display it to any who might wish to glimpse your pocketed jewel. You lay, instead, hidden in the bowels of the ship listening to the roar of the malevolent water as the Atlantic Ocean asserted its authority over the clumsy vessel, tossing its rusty bulk high and then abandoning it so that it crashed back to the watery earth with a loud slap. Yoruba boy. Young lion leaving Lagos, Nigeria, in the oil-rich heart of the British Empire. Cold and tired, chilled in your young bones, curled up like a newborn babe. A hand reached down and pushed you. You opened your eyes and saw your saviour glowering at you, disgusted that he had discovered a nigger on his ship. Yoruba boy travelling to meet his future. Please, do not look at me in this way. I desire only to reach England in safety. To travel across this terrifying water to England, and thereafter to continue with my life. But he stared down at you, didn't he, David? As though he was eager to throw you into the water that frightened you so much. Toss you away into the open mouth of the sea. But he did nothing. You uncurled your tight, stiff body and stood uneasily. Water. You asked him for water to drink. Water. But the man said nothing. He simply stared at you and watched your mouth moving like that of a fish. Water. And then many days later the water came to an end. There was no more water, there was only land, and an arrival in a moribund grey coastal town in the north of England, among a colourless clutter of wharves and barges, and cranes and container boxes. Your eyes feasted upon the grey vista of Hull at the mouth of the River Humber on the east coast of England, and you held your breath. Yoruba boy in England with a whole life in front of him. But first, prison. The policeman handcuffed you and led you down the plank to the shore while hostile eyes burned a hole in your thin body. You had imposed yourself upon them. Your heart sank, and for the first time it occurred to you that these people might cast you back upon the water and attempt to send you home. But they said nothing. They simply locked you in a cell and told you to wait. Wait. Their food would not stay in your stomach. You did not enjoy the contempt with which the guards looked at you. In fact, there was no joy to these men, to this country, to this prison, but it was too late for you had crossed the water and arrived. However, if only they would allow you to remain in their country then you felt sure that one day you might find joy. Eventually they bullied you into a courtroom and imposed twenty-eight days in prison upon you, after which they promised you that you would be permitted to enter British life. Twenty-eight days only. Twenty-eight days to freedom. But they did not take you from the courtroom and accompany
you back to the familiar cell. They put you in a van and turned inland, away from the sea, away from Hull, and they travelled for fifty miles with their Yoruba cargo in the back of their vehicle. They furrowed their way towards the centre of England. Leeds. In Leeds the jail is Victorian. Its high Gothic walls are imposing and frightening. An extremely narrow gate. Armley jail. Your twenty-eight days would be spent here, away from the sea, in the heart of England. And after twenty-eight days of misshapened dreams that presented themselves as nightmares, they released you into this city of Leeds. To go back to Hull would be to suggest a return. No. You were cold. A teenager. Already a veteran of an Atlantic passage and prison. But now you were free and ready. But that was a long time ago, David. It would be nearly twenty years before you would meet the nameless girl at the bottom of Button Hill. Twenty years in which to live a life in Leeds in the heart of England. David, do you remember the girl? She did not know your history, but she knew your name. You waited for her and bathed in her smile, and exchanged your few words. And then you watched as she disappeared from view. Yoruba boy from Lagos who, on arriving in Leeds, thought only of himself in the future tense. A teenager at home in Leeds. Alone. I will stay in Leeds. No more water. No water. You decided. And then later. Imagine, a fourteen-year-old girl with manners from the Old World who showed you respect. And after she had passed you by it was time for you to leave Button Hill. You walked down Chapeltown Road towards the heart of your city. The language of hope no longer sat on your tongue. It was difficult to speak in the future tense. But the appearance of the girl gave you hope. The girl seemed to know who you were even if your city misunderstood you. But after twenty years you refused to leave your city.

  The history of Leeds begins with the river; without the river Leeds would never have come into being. Thirty miles to the north-west of the present-day city, a thin trickle of water dribbles through the massive limestone cliff of Malham Cove, which is part of the brooding Pennine range that forms the knobbly spine running up the middle of England. The thin trickle of water falls and becomes a stream, and soon after the stream bursts and becomes a river named Aire. The river flows quickly, to the south and to the east through the Aire Valley and in the direction of the much mightier River Humber. When the Romans laid out a road from York (Eboracum) in the east to Manchester (Mancunium) in the west the River Aire was an obstacle that had to be crossed. Eventually the Romans decided that the road should cross the River Aire at a place near the present-day Leeds Bridge.

  For 400 years the Romans occupied Britain, subduing sporadic uprisings, civilising the local people, and educating them in the ways of bathing, heating, and construction. However, before the coming of the Romans, tribal Celtic people had cleared the lush woodland of the Aire Valley. Having done so they grew oats and barley, and raised sheep, pigs, and cattle on both banks of the River Aire. They lived in circular stone huts, and ground their corn and flour in handmade pottery. Although their 'civilisation' progressed from stone to bronze, and then from bronze to iron, this evolution could not disguise their essential warlike tribal nature. They built ramparts and defences against each other, and they fought with habitual ferocity, slaughtering families and livestock. However, when the Romans arrived, under the command of Julius Caesar, and began their regimented, disciplined march through the foggy island, the tribal people soon capitulated. The Aire Valley, and the people contained therein, submitted to the iron-fisted authority of Roman rule, but the invaders knew that in order to ensure no further nonsense from these Britons it would be necessary to build roads along which Roman troops could quickly move through this uncultured land. And so Leeds was born, for one such road crossed the River Aire.

  Roman Leeds (Loidis) is memorialised only by occasional discoveries of shards of pottery, or old coins. Roman Britain soon became Christian Britain, and although the Romans continued to rule they were forever battling marauding Pagan tribes who were determined to overthrow them. In AD 410 the Eternal City of Rome was herself sacked, and Anglo-Saxon tribes seized this opportunity and invaded the island of Britain. Eventually, the exhausted Romans let it be known that it was the duty of the Britons to protect their own land, including the river settlement of Loidis, and thereafter the Dark Ages descended upon Britain as the Saxons and the Jutes and the Angles swarmed across the chaotic land. Pagan tribal kings killed Christian tribal kings who in turn killed pagan tribal kings. Leeds was a Christian region which possessed a ninth-century church of some size and importance, and when the Vikings eventually invaded Anglican Britain, and set up their capital at York, they were aware of the important township to the west over which they immediately proceeded to exercise their Danish law. Leeds was growing in size, and although much of the land beyond the manorial settlement remained heavily wooded, there were some clearings that included, north of the river, such villages as Headingley, Seacroft, and Alwoodley, and south of the river the villages of Armley, Bramley, and Beeston.

  The settlement of Leeds suffered the misery of being visited by the plagues that swept Britain in 987, in 1001, and again in 1046, and the population of the township was decimated. In 1066, the Normans, under the command of Duke William of Normandy, crossed the Channel, killed the new English king and imposed their Gallic rule, but the north of England objected and rebelled. Three years later, in 1069, a frustrated William led his army on a mission to sack, destroy, and forever subdue the northern population, a campaign of action which became known as the Harrying of the North. Almost half of Yorkshire's 1,900 settlements were totally destroyed, and a significant number were cripplingly damaged, but Leeds was spared the might of the Norman hammer. The evidence of her good fortune is made clear in the Doomsday Book of 1086 which recounts that, during this period, the value of the township of Leeds, with a population of approximately 200, actually increased.

  The township's simple structures were dominated by the manor house, the parish church, and the mill, and agriculture was the means by which most people made their living. The tilling of the soil, and the breeding and slaughter of beasts, took place in accordance with the changing seasons. Norman Leeds, like other settlements in the kingdom, developed a cyclical pattern of life. Nestled in the Aire Valley, and located at an important river crossing, under Norman rule Leeds quickly began to develop and dominate the surrounding villages both economically and in terms of the grandeur of her vision. Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as Norman England gradually gave way to medieval England, the township by the river crossing continued to grow. It adhered to a model of feudalism in which land was held by the king, who stood at the apex of the system, with barons and noblemen, down to the peasants, ranged beneath him in an orderly fashion. All offered the king some form of service in exchange for their right to occupy their particular station in society.

  Medieval life centred around the manor house, with its communal oven, and there was a tightly organised taxation structure so that all monies flowed back towards the lord of the manor, who owed his allegiance directly to the king. However, the manorial township of Leeds, whose manor house was located near Kirkgate, was not generating enough money to satisfy the lord of the manor so an extension of the town, centring on Briggate, was established. In this new town the freeholder of the land had no political rights, but they were permitted to build workshops and establish crafts and industries which, it was hoped, would eventually generate more income for the lord. By the fourteenth century the new town and the old manorial township had fused as one, and the influence of the old system was declining as the actual manor house itself began to fall into disrepair. Profits from usage of the land began to fall sharply, and it was becoming clear to residents and visitors alike that Leeds was an increasingly dilapidated town. This situation was made worse by the arrival, in July 1348, of the bubonic plague. However, compared to the damage visited upon other English towns, Leeds escaped quite lightly.

  After the plague, Leeds sought to arrest its decline and develop an industrial base. Blacksmiths were encouraged
, coal mines were sunk, mills for the grinding of corn were constructed, but most notably, the woollen industry began now to dominate the economy. Having an advantageous position on a river, and a major road connection, the burgeoning woollen textile industry was able to rapidly develop. The wool was delivered by local farmers and then sorted into proper grades, washed, and the matted fibres straightened. The straightened wool fibres were then spun into thread, and the threads woven into one continuous cloth. The cloth was wetted so that it would shrink, and then trampled upon so that the fibres would mat together. Thereafter, the wet cloth was placed on frames and stretched, then dyed and finished, which often meant raising the pile by brushing it. Leeds cloth was known as 'northern dozens', and cut to about four metres. It was taken to the Monday market in Leeds where this quality product soon developed a national reputation. Leeds men were known to be well-dressed individuals in good wool cloth, and the townspeople, including those who in the future would dress in long black coats and stand at the bottom of Button Hill, were smartly attired. The sheer quality of the cloth on the back of the town's population would ensure that this small northern town began now to swell in size, wealth, and renown.