The Invisible Crowd

by Ellen Wiles

  ‘Aw come on, it’s just the odd nightcap, love. Don’t start naggin’ now, will you?’

  Should’ve known that’d wind her up. ‘I’ll say what I like!’ she said. ‘Go on, tell me, how can you be affording whisky every night when you always used to moan about how much I let you take out of the kitty?’

  ‘The lads are a generous bunch,’ I said.

  ‘Come off it, Joe, they’re as tight as you.’

  ‘Well if you must know,’ I said, ‘I’ve got nifty on the pool table. Found meself on a winning streak.’

  ‘Oh pull the other one,’ she said. ‘I used to thrash you at pool, and I’ve got the hand–eye coordination of a… I don’t know. A penguin.’

  ‘Penguins don’t have hands, Jill.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she said, all smug.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘why don’t you join the lads at the pub tomorrow then, and see me skills for yourself?’ I wished I hadn’t said that, soon as it came out me mouth. Knowing Jill, she would and all and I’d get all nervous and fluff it up. But luckily she said she’d got better things to do.

  Anyway, I’d got to the point where I’d almost forgotten there were anything unusual about that building, and it were just a normal drizzly morning when I were driving up the track and in me mirrors I saw summat moving in the bushes and then pop out – guessed it were a deer or summat – but it were that black African lad! And he jumped on the back of me truck, quick as a flash. Nearly give me the fright of me life! It were like seeing a ghost… but the opposite colour – ha! Anyway, I braked, opened the door, and looked out at him. ‘All right there?’ I asked. He got off, and I thought he might make a run for it, but he walked towards me. He were wearing worker’s overalls and they were right filthy. He were youngish, thirties I’d say, pale brown skin, tall and skinny as a rake with matted hair and a beard, and I wondered if he were one of them jihad terrorists about to hijack me or summat. But then I thought, they’re normally Arabs. And then I thought, Why would a bloke do summat like that out here to a bloke like me? He didn’t say a word at first, just stared, and I couldn’t tell if he were scared or crazy. I wondered if he’d escaped from some loony asylum or if he were illegal, one of them that are supposed to be all over the shop. So I told him I’d better be on me way.

  But he burst out: ‘Wait! Please wait. Sir, I’m lost, can you please take me to the train station?’

  I’d never been called sir in me life, and it were such an odd thing to hear, it made me laugh. But how could you get lost trying to get to the train station out here? And why did he jump on the back? Didn’t sound right.

  ‘Not on my route,’ I told him. ‘Sorry. And I’d better be going, so if you could move aside…’

  ‘Please,’ he said, and there were this look in his eyes, this desperation. ‘You can drop me anywhere.’

  Now, normally I do like to pick up the odd hitchhiker. Used to hitch meself back in the day. But no one’d ever hitched a ride in me rubbish truck before! Most folks who walk past it hold their noses, and folks wrinkle their noses up at me when I’m in me work gear in a shop or summat – and I’m used to that now. But he didn’t seem to mind. Probably smelled himself but I’m immune to that. I could’ve told him just to get out the way again, but I remember what that were like, when people told me to move it when I really needed to get somewhere and I could see they had room. But then I thought, if I take this lad along, I might stop getting the weekly tip. But then another part of me felt bad for taking it in the first place.

  So then I thought, what the heck, and told him to hop in. As we got further up the track I noticed he kept on looking in the rear-view mirror, like he were spooked. And when we got to the main road he went, ‘Thank you, you’ve saved me.’

  I wished he hadn’t said that. I said it weren’t a problem. But then I couldn’t stop meself asking what country he were from.

  Oh Lord, now, what were it he said? To be honest I hadn’t heard of the place. It were in Africa, close to Ethiopia, I remember that much, and I felt bad then. ‘I remember those pictures on the telly in the eighties,’ I told him. ‘Kids with bellies popping out.’ It were horrible, that famine, horrible. I hadn’t thought about it for a while. ‘Were it like that in your country?’ I asked him. He said that they used to be the same country in the eighties. News to me! Geography were never me strong suit. Well anyway, then I felt all right, like I were actually doing a good deed by giving this poor lad a lift, like I were finally doing something for all them starving kids, not just watching them on telly and donating a couple of quid to Bob Geldof and feeling pretty useless. And then he asked me if I knew London.

  ‘Not well,’ I told him. ‘Too hectic for me down there. I’ve got a brother who lives in the East End though. Moved there not long ago and got himself a job. Place called Canning Town. Haven’t visited him yet. Should get round to it. So – what brought you to England then?’

  ‘Just to live,’ he said. I guessed then he were after benefits, like they say, you know, and fair play, in a way – I mean, I suppose you would be, coming from somewhere like that. But he added: ‘And work.’

  ‘Oh right,’ I said. ‘What kind of work?’

  ‘Anything,’ he said. ‘If it pays some money. Even cleaning toilets would be good just now.’

  ‘Well, who knows,’ I said, ‘you might even find a bin man job, there’s worse things!’ And he laughed. ‘You go for it, lad,’ I said. ‘So, when d’you get here then?’

  He took a while to answer, till I thought maybe he hadn’t heard the question. Then he said, ‘Not long ago. Actually I already started work, but I was working for a bad man.’

  I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Long flight to get here, was it?’ I asked him, to change t’subject.

  He laughed. ‘I didn’t fly,’ he said. ‘First we had to walk through the desert for four days with no food. We only survived because we came across a shepherd’s water container in a valley so we could drink, and the hyenas decided not to eat us.’

  I looked at him, and nearly laughed, like – you what?

  ‘Then, for some time we were living in a lorry, a bit like this one,’ he said. ‘But stuck inside a box on the back, with no room to sit down, and it was as hot as an oven – and the smell was worse than this.’

  ‘Ha!’ I laughed. ‘Come on now. Not many folk would say that about a rubbish truck smell.’

  ‘Maybe they haven’t smelled—’ then he stopped.

  ‘Smelled what?! Dead people?’ I laughed at me own joke, even though it were a bit dark, like.

  But he weren’t laughing. He looked out the window. Didn’t deny it. I mean, he could have said he were just being polite about me truck or summat! I felt queasy all of a sudden. This were creepy, like. Were he saying they’d been murdered, these dead people he were travelling with? Were he the killer? Were he about to finish me off and all? Me heart started going then, nineteen to’t dozen, I tell you. Tricky thing to hijack though, a rubbish truck. I mean, you’d get spotted pretty quick, wouldn’t you? Couldn’t get up much of a speed. And this lad seemed polite, anyway, not like a killer. Maybe there weren’t actually dead people in a lorry with him – maybe he just didn’t say there weren’t. If you know what I mean.

  ‘We came in a boat, for the last part,’ he told me.

  ‘Who’s we then?’ I asked. ‘Did you come with family?’

  ‘With a friend,’ he said, ‘who is like my brother.’ But he didn’t tell me nowt more, and to be honest I’d heard enough. Can of worms, I’d got to thinking.

  ‘Well, you’re probably doing the right thing, heading to London now,’ I said, trying to sound cheery. ‘Tough to get any kind of work round here these days, so no point you hangin’ around. I’m sure you’ll settle into the Big Smoke, no worries.’

  I switched on Radio 2. There were Bryan Adams on, and then Bob Dylan – ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, you know the one. And then your lad started singing along! He knew the lyrics – I mean, word for word. I had no clue the
y listened to that sort of thing in Africa! Thought they were more into drumming or reggae or whatever. But anyway it were quite funny – I ended up joining in, and we were there driving to town, the two of us, singing like we were a couple of mates who’d just left the pub on New Year’s Eve. And I thought: this lad is all right!

  Soon enough we got to the station. ‘Here we are then,’ I said.

  He were about to get out, but then he stopped and asked for me phone number. Pulled a crumpled piece of newspaper out of his pocket for me to write on.

  I weren’t keen about that. I mean, I had started to warm to him a bit, but once you write stuff down and give out your details – you know? But he said he didn’t know anyone in the UK yet, and maybe we could meet again some day as he’d like to say thanks. Just so bloody polite! There were loads of reasons to say no. But then he’d come from that country with the starving kids, and he’d travelled all the way here on his tod, in some kind of grave on wheels – and the lad knew all the bloomin’ words to ‘Like a Rolling Stone’! So I scribbled it down.

  As I drove off down the road I kicked meself. Not literally. But I just felt like I’d been a softie, and I started to get worried about what might happen. For all I knew he could be a criminal. I could’ve aided and abetted. But I tried to put it all out of me mind and think of it as a good deed. And that were that, for a long while anyway. The twenty-quid notes kept on coming, and I stayed king of the pool table for a month, till some young upstart came along. Assumed I’d never hear from the African lad again. And after a week or two of having strange dreams with corpses stuffed like sardines in the back of me rubbish truck, things went back to normal and I very nearly forgot all about him.

  Chapter 4: Yonas

  MIGRANT SHAMBLES: EU ‘HAS SURRENDERED COMPLETE CONTROL OF ITS BORDERS TO PEOPLE SMUGGLERS’

  On Friday morning, Yonas went outside to collect the new deliveries and jogged on the spot for a minute, trying to pump some blood back into his toes. Beyond the fence, a pinkish sky illuminated the scattering of copper and mustard leaves among the dense bushes. Some were already forming a squidgy layer on the cracked concrete. As he looked up the track, his feet itched at the prospect of getting out. Only a few hours to go before the scoping walk.

  He reached out to pick up the topmost crate of scallops, and its newspaper lining caught his eye.

  TORTURED ASYLUM SEEKER FRAUDULENTLY CLAIMED £21,000 IN BENEFITS WHILE EARNING £2,000 A MONTH

  £21,000? That sounded like a lot! Even £2,000 sounded like a lot. Could this story be made up? But this was the UK, and newspapers here were regulated – didn’t they have a duty to present facts? Still… He tore out the headline carefully, put it in his pocket, and lugged the crate inside.

  For the rest of the morning he worked faster than usual, with jiggling feet. In anticipation of the walk he thought back to his military service days, how impatiently he’d look forward to striding out of the barracks, up that long, stony path all the way up to the Eye, a hole in the rock that was big enough to sit in, to curve your spine into its shape, smoothed by the weather and the years and countless other human forms, and rest for a while, absorbing the rippling mountainscape, free for a precious moment just by rising above it all. When the wind was easterly the Eye would emit a low wail, like a giant flute.

  At noon, Aziz started caterwauling his call to prayer and pulled out the frayed carpet, marking the start of free time. While he and the other Muslims prostrated themselves, everyone else sat around and played mancala games or snoozed. Yonas leaned against the wall preparing to read his saved sheets of newspaper, but Osman’s wheezy cough sounded beside him. ‘Yonas, can you help practise my English?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, swallowing his irritation. ‘Take a seat. Why don’t you start from here, the bit about the football team?’

  Osman stumbled along, tracing his finger at a snail’s pace underneath the words. He was a cute kid, seventeen at most, and the only other person in the factory who showed any interest in reading, in finding out more about this country they were in, anticipating more than mere survival. Meanwhile Gebre was watching a mancala game with a vacant expression. Yonas chipped in now and then to correct Osman’s pronunciation or explain a definition, and time dawdled on. But finally prayers were over, Petros went out, and Aziz retreated to his den, from where a rhythmic snore signalled the start of his nap. Yonas told Osman to carry on reading while he went to the toilet, got up and went out, nudging Gebre on his way.

  As planned, Gebre followed him. ‘Okay, let’s go!’ Yonas whispered.

  But Gebre shook his head. ‘I’ve been thinking – it’s too risky. If we’re going for good on Monday, let’s just figure out a route then, on the fly.’

  He had a point. But Yonas wanted so badly to get beyond the fence. ‘I think we should plan,’ he said. ‘But I’ll just go solo if you don’t want to.’

  He crossed the yard, clambered over the gate and started up the hill. But then he heard footsteps. He turned with a flicker of panic – but it was Gebre, after all! Yonas grinned, held up his palm for a high-five and they carried on side by side. The sun was struggling through thick swathes of cloud and the wind strengthened as they climbed. It felt so good to be moving. ‘So, we’ll get to a higher point,’ Yonas said, ‘and work out a direction, some landmarks, sketch out in our heads a rough route that seems like it’s away from main roads with foliage to hide in… We’ll travel mainly at dawn and dusk, find odd jobs, dry places to sleep, and then once we get to London—’ He stopped. Grabbed Gebre’s shoulder. Yes: footsteps again. They turned, expecting to see Petros with a snarl on his face.

  ‘Osman!’ Yonas laughed incredulously. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I want to come,’ the kid said. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Just for a walk. But if Aziz finds out…’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘You should,’ Gebre said.

  ‘You can’t stop me.’ For a moment, Osman looked exactly like Yonas’s little brother Tekle, with those stubborn, pleading eyes, those puppy eyebrows.

  ‘Come on then!’ Yonas relented, and jabbed Gebre in the ribs. ‘Race you to the top!’ To his surprise, Gebre took off as if he’d got new batteries. Yonas pounded behind, energy streaming into his blood, laughter making him gasp for air. His feet thundered, his stiff, cold muscles came painfully to life, his arms pumped like pistons, his lungs were about to explode, his whole body was on fire, but he carried on regardless.

  When they finally made it, panting, to the crest of the hill, they were struck in the face by a blast of salty wind. Blood thumped in Yonas’s temples as he let out a whoop. Gebre bent forward, hands on his knees, puffing steam into the air. Osman, wheezing, finally made it to join them. About a mile down the slope ahead, and stretching out indefinitely, was the sea.

  It wasn’t bright blue or gleaming like the Red Sea, or violent and terrible like the Mediterranean. It was a soft, deep grey flecked with white foam like a scattering of goose feathers. A few birds hovered over it, frolicking in the wind, making light of its huge scale, a scale that brought back the terror… and yet, from this safe vantage point, the sight was liberating. Reaching out his arms like a champion sprinter, Yonas flung back his head and inhaled into parts of his lungs he had forgotten existed.

  Gebre stood with his feet wide, hands on hips, shaking his head, a smile transforming his face. ‘It is good to be out of there,’ he said.

  Yonas nodded sagely. ‘I told you so.’

  ‘All right, all right, you didn’t paint this view.’

  ‘I made this whole sea out of my saliva,’ Yonas said. ‘You should start worshipping me like I deserve.’

  ‘Idiot’, Gebre said, shoving him gently, then flopped down on the ground. Yonas copied, feeling almost drunk on the lightness of laughter and the weight of his body on the earth and the intense, sharp scent of damp grass.

  Eventually he sat up, and leaned on his elbows. The sky to the south was blue-green, like the in
side of a duck egg shell, and splashed with drifting clouds, but to the north a malevolent purple mass was forming. He closed his eyes, and let the wind pummel his cheeks. Feeling his sweat cool, he shivered, rubbed his arms and sat up straight. ‘Okay – we’re supposed to be planning a route here, and then we should head back,’ he said, and began to scan the inland horizon. There was no sign of a town; the only buildings visible were an industrial-looking complex and some clusters of houses in the distance. Yonas figured if they followed the coastline southwards for a while they would be able to get quite a long way unnoticed, before working out a way to call Auntie. Gebre was still lying down with his eyes closed and a serene look on his face. Yonas cast around for Osman. He looked behind, and either side – and then spotted him, running down the hill ahead, at full pelt towards the sea.

  He grabbed Gebre’s arm. ‘Look! Osman – he’s running off!’

  Gebre jerked upright, then they both scrambled to their feet. ‘Osmaaaaan!’

  ‘He can’t hear. But they might hear us at the factory if we yell any more. We’ll never catch him and get back on time…’

  ‘Donkoro. I knew something like this would happen,’ Gebre groaned. ‘We shouldn’t have let him come.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got the right idea,’ Yonas said. ‘Come on, let’s go too – screw it!’

  ‘We can’t. We agreed two weeks. And my photo’s still in there.’

  ‘What? The one of your parents? Why didn’t you bring it?’

  ‘It’s all I’ve got left. I have to get it.’

  Yonas reached into his pocket and ran his finger over the crown of his wooden rooster. ‘It’s just a piece of paper,’ he protested weakly. ‘And if we go back without Osman, Aziz will go nuts…’

  ‘We’ll get back in time – he won’t know we left. And Osman will turn around any minute. Come on.’

  Gebre set off. Osman’s figure was already just a speck on the horizon. Yonas followed.

  When they slipped into the factory again, there were a few raised eyebrows among the other workers but nobody said anything. Aziz re-emerged from his nap, dinner preparation started as normal, and nobody seemed to notice anyone was missing. But then Rashid came up behind Yonas. ‘Where’s Osman?’ he whispered. Yonas mimed zipping his mouth.