The Invisible Crowd

by Ellen Wiles

  You pull a tissue out of your pocket, blow your nose, wipe your cheeks, but they’re already wet again. You had been so ready for the hearing this morning, more invested in it than any other case you’d ever done, so to get a call from your solicitor at 9 a.m. to say that your client’s best friend had committed suicide and that the client himself had now disappeared… it was a shock. You still went along to the tribunal, half expecting YK to show up after all. But he didn’t. You had to request an adjournment, which was denied, and your solicitor said that YK had switched off his phone.

  You went back to your room in chambers and sat there for a while, randomly doing internet searches about Eritrean asylum seekers. You turned up an interview with the President of Eritrea, who, when asked what he was planning to do about the thousands fleeing the country, said: ‘They will come back. They are going for a picnic. They will come back one day.’ Oddly, that was what had prompted this flood. You’d just gathered your stuff and left chambers before anyone heard you lose it.

  A sharp wind cuts at your throat. You pull up your lapels, and attempt to use one of them to wipe your face. Where is YK? Why do you care so much? What the hell is wrong with you? You’ve just imagined such absurd amounts about him since you first picked up his case, from what he looks like to his fantasy foods; you felt like you knew him, you’d already started jotting ideas for writing about him in a spare legal notebook, and now you might never see him in the flesh. But he’s just another client you’d never really have got to know anyway! How has his case got to you like this?

  A blinding light. Pain. You’ve been whacked in the face. Assaulted! But no, as your vision returns, it becomes clear that you have just walked into a lamppost. You have – actually – just walked into a lamppost. How embarrassing! How bloody painful. You touch your forehead delicately. This won’t look pretty tomorrow.

  ‘You all right, love?’ A kindly looking woman puts her hand on your arm, concerned.

  You manage a laugh, wipe away more snotty tears. ‘Thanks, yes I’m fine, was just distracted – I’ll be okay.’ You’ve really got to pull yourself together. You walk on, faster now, feeling a bit dizzy, keeping an eye out for rogue lampposts, and hoping you don’t bump, literally or metaphorically, into someone you know… Is this some kind of early mid-life crisis? Are you just over-tired? But why did YK disappear? Is he actually still in London, devastated by his friend’s death, holing himself up in whatever godawful room he probably lives in? Or has he fled? But where? He wouldn’t kill himself as well, would he, before you’ve had a chance to fight his case? Could you go on an amateur detective hunt and find him? You’re being ridiculous now.

  As the road dips towards Ludgate Circus, you spot a QC you did some work for once, a misogynist slimeball who’d just love the opportunity to witness you upset and use it as an excuse to put a sleazy, BO-exuding arm around your shoulder. You veer off the pavement and start crossing the road. A taxi has to stop suddenly and honks at you, but you keep ploughing on. Several people are giving you weird looks now, so you cut away from the hubbub, up one of the little quiet roads towards Hatton Garden, where you and Max chose your engagement ring, at an absurd cost he swore he could stretch to, even though you knew he couldn’t at the time, not really, and you didn’t believe he should have to pay for it in an age of equal rights, but you weren’t that strong about resisting, so here it is, on your finger, sparkling under the streetlight, reminding you that you are loved, that you are being silly, that you are probably just overworked, that you should call Max to tell him where you are, tell him the decision that’s dawning on you… But you had better stop crying first.

  As you were leaving chambers, the cleaners were coming in, a friendly bunch of Bulgarians, who always leave the communal areas spotless. And now, as you walk through the eerily empty cave of Smithfield Market, home of blood and butchery and bargaining and traditional English working-class men, you wonder how many asylum seekers are setting out to work, cleaning offices for peanuts, or selling their bodies, or doing whatever it takes to make a living and send money to their families, not moping about feeling sorry for themselves like you, not weeping pathetically and walking into lampposts. You have the chance to be with your little boy right now, and instead you’re throwing all your time, energy and emotion on clients who don’t even turn up to hearings. What’s the point? You were stupid to think you could save the world by being a barrister, or even make a tiny fraction of a difference. You should just focus on being a better mother before Alec flies the nest. And maybe seeing some of your old friends before they give up on you for always bailing on nights out at the last minute in favour of work.

  Yes, you’d better suck it up and quit the Bar.

  You walk past the Barbican, looking up at the familiar brutalist ziggurat, remembering how you used to come here so often for films and exhibitions and concerts before you started this job and had a baby, and you’re sure you read recently that it was voted the ugliest building in London, yet it’s also listed and admired and beloved, and you try to imagine it when it was first unveiled here, as part of a utopian vision to rejuvenate the area after its pounding by bombs in the Second World War. It’s so hard to imagine this city as a war zone, but it really wasn’t that long ago – why couldn’t it be again? You bet the fortunate elite who live in the tower – including a woman in chambers, actually – rarely contemplate the history of the ground below, as they pop down at will for a plate of three colourful salads in the restaurant, or a martini with a twist, or a shot of physical theatre. And why should they?

  You wind around Finsbury Square and towards the City, dwarfed by the glass palaces of the world’s richest bankers, and past the thrum of commuters around Liverpool Street, and through the incongruously narrow, irregularly paved medieval alleyways leading to Spitalfields and Brick Lane, and you think of all the migrant groups who’ve settled in this neighbourhood over the centuries and made it what it is now: the Jews, the Bangladeshis and, increasingly, the hipster artists, who are sort of migrants too if you think of them financially. They will end up getting pushed out by bankers and move elsewhere, further east, maybe even out to Leyton where you and Max could just about afford a place.

  And what about the illegal immigrants, the recently arrived? Where are they all living? All over the place, probably, in attics and basements and random buildings above shops, an invisible crowd hiding away behind ordinary exteriors; could YK be hiding out in this derelict pub? In that council block? Above that nail salon? The Vietnamese-looking girls in there, intently painting their tiny fingertip canvases, could be trafficked too for all you know.

  Your tide of tears has turned now, and it strikes you that you’re not even sure which road you’re on any more, thanks to your emotional speculating spree. You’d better get your bearings and find the nearest Tube – you must be somewhere north of Whitechapel – and you can’t walk all the way home or you’ll arrive in the middle of the night to an angry, clucking husband. But when you pull out your phone to call Max you find your battery’s dead. Maybe you’ll end up walking all the way home after all, because your legs and your mind just keep on going, going, going…

  Chapter 30: Melat

  FAILED ASYLUM SEEKER WHO RAPED A TEENAGER IN A PARK AS SHE HAD AN EPILEPTIC FIT IS JAILED FOR TEN YEARS

  Dear Yonas,

  I don’t know if you will get this letter, but if you do, you have Saba to thank - you remember, my friend who documents Eritrean history, who had a daughter Lemlem’s age? Well, she got an invitation to go to Scotland for a fellowship. And because of her father’s connections she was actually granted a visa. Amazing, no? She said she would bring this and post it to you when she arrives in UK. I really hope you get it, now that your appeal is coming up. If you do, you should also find other things in the envelope.

  Two are signed letters. One is from the owner of the Blue Balloon internet café you used to go to, and the other is from Mariam from the British Council office, both confirming that you used to
use the computers there regularly to send articles about the situation to the UK, using your pen name. I had to use all my persuasion skills to get them to risk signing, because they both remembered you but denied knowing you did anything like that. At the other internet cafés you went to, they said no. But this is better than nothing, I think. I wish I had some evidence to help Gebre too. Please send him my love.

  I did find one thing of Gebre’s, though: a cartoon he did of you two when you were kids that had been pinned to your wall and slipped behind the bed, so they did not find it when they took all your things. I’ve included that in the envelope too. You can give it to him when you see him.

  You will also find a drawing of a flower Lemlem made for you, with a poem she wrote underneath. She wants to be a poet, now, you know, though I am sure she will change her mind and want to be an astronaut again next week. She misses you a lot, but she is still doing well in school, even though the education here gets worse every week. Sheshy helps her more these days, as well as me. He is in a much happier mood most of the time, you will be pleased to hear.

  Which reminds me: another thing you should have is a photograph of Lemlem, grandmother and me – three out of four generations, standing together in the garden, which Sheshy took with his camera. Camera? I can hear you thinking! A family from the UK sent a box of second-hand cameras to the disabled martyrs group he belongs to, and he was lucky enough to get one. It keeps him occupied, and gets him out of the house, wheeling around the streets, snapping. A silver lining of having no legs is that people always pose for you, he says.

  Grandmother is frail now, but still recognizes me, usually. I started taking her to a local group where she can go to drink coffee with other old people – they never remember each other, and usually have exactly the same conversations each week. I met someone there recently who was caring for his grandfather - a widower, a little older than me, not much. You’d like him. He did a literature degree too, but in Addis - his mother was Ethiopian. He avoided military service because he can’t see out of one eye. He is handsome, though, and he has a good singing voice and makes me laugh.

  So, life is hard here still, and every day I fear them coming for me again, but we try our best to live in hope.

  On which note, good luck with your appeal - and next time be honest with me earlier, okay? I know we are far away and I am always telling you about our problems and asking for your help, but we are still your family and you can count on us too, for support if not for money. You don’t have to go through everything on your own, all right?

  Call soon. We miss you. We are all rooting for you to be allowed to stay there, even though we are jealous and would like you back here with us.

  Your loving sister,

  Melat

  Chapter 31: Yonas

  ASYLUM SEEKER JAILED FOR HOUR-LONG HAMMER ATTACK ON WIFE HE USED FOR VISA

  Sunshine woke him. Soft swishes of wind. Seagulls at their daily antics, coasting and flapping and screeching at each other. He’d slept through the dawn, more deeply than he had in a long while. He got up, stiff as a robot, and stretched. The sea! He felt a little bit glad that he’d lived one more day, just so he could wake up to this huge, surging, endless vista, all his own.

  But practicalities quickly nagged. He couldn’t stay here. Should he continue north? The vague plan at the back of his blurry mind had been to walk all the way to the top of the UK, and then finally throw himself off the rocks and into the sea. Not that there would be anyone to witness it. That seemed like an absurd, melodramatic gesture now. But he supposed he might as well walk on for a bit. He set off up the beach.

  His legs felt light and hollow. He pulled his penultimate slice of bread out of his rucksack and munched as he walked. He tipped up his water bottle afterwards, but all that came out was a trickle. He would have to beg a favour from a café somewhere if he was going make it more than five miles. How had he and Gebre done this in the desert? Through that relentless heat, with the acacia thorns, the rocks, the wilderness, all roads to safety heaving with soldiers? He couldn’t imagine, now. He was a younger man then, a more desperate man, a more fearful man, a more hopeful man.

  A dog dashed past him, hell for leather, chasing a seagull, knowing full well that the bird could swoop out of the way as easily as it liked, but the dog didn’t care – it was just running out of sheer energy, for thrills. A couple followed it, its owners, Yonas supposed, arm in arm. They smiled and said hello to him as they passed, as if he were just another normal person out for a stroll. Apart from them, the beach was empty.

  A looming structure appeared ahead. It looked like a castle. He carried on towards it, curious. Yes, it was definitely a castle – huge, tall and fierce, towering over the sea, the land, a testament to human assertiveness, human ingenuity, human creativity. He stood at the base, looking up, and felt tiny and insignificant. He wondered about the tiny, insignificant men who built it centuries earlier. Did they have any inkling that the thing they were creating would be appreciated by tiny, insignificant people from across the world so far into the future? Did anyone still live there?

  His reverie was broken by the sight of a woman emerging onto the beach from behind the castle. A red-haired woman. His breath shortened. Nina. But it wasn’t of course. She looked nothing like Nina, actually – apart from its colour, her hair was totally different, all wispy and messy – and although she was short, she was stocky, and dressed in hardy walker’s gear, with a sporty-looking pole. She lifted a friendly hand to greet him. He lifted his in return, and watched her proceeding south along the beach. Nina. What if it had been her, with her long skein of hair, and her elfin, freckled face? What would he say to her? He wished it was Nina. It struck him that he was an idiot to have ditched her and Molly, to have run off in his grief without telling them, turning his phone off and abandoning his appeal, despite all they’d done for him. But how could they help now? They couldn’t do anything about Gebre, or the police who must now be on his trail, and they wouldn’t want to get mixed up in all that. They couldn’t change the fact that he hadn’t shown up for his tribunal hearing. And they certainly couldn’t change the asylum system.

  Still, he missed Nina now, with a sudden pang. For whatever reason, she had really seemed to like him. Yes, she and Molly – and Clara, in fact – had genuinely been happy to have him around. He remembered the feeling of Nina putting her hands gently on his cheeks, pulling his face towards hers, and his heart tugged, like it used to do when he thought about Sarama, back when his memory of her was more vivid, when the sensation of her warm skin was more tangible. So much time had passed now, that thinking about Sarama these days was less of a pain, more of a dull ache. It was difficult even to picture her face properly. Nina’s face, on the other hand, was as crisp as a close-up photo when he called it to mind. Her greenish eyes. Her mass of freckles. Her delicate lips blurting out that sudden, silvery laugh.

  But he couldn’t go back to Nina, not now. It would be wrong to put her in that position anyway. She’d be angry with him. He’d not only cut them all off and missed his appeal, he’d broken into an immigration facility and would probably be arrested and jailed if they found out. He’d made his choices – his cowardly, impulsive, stupid choices. He was alone now, completely alone, with nothing and no one left. Free!

  He turned back to the sea, kicked off his shoes, felt the sand between his toes, flung off his coat, ripped off his jumper and T-shirt, tugged off his trousers, and ran across the beach, towards the water, closer and closer, faster and faster as the sand firmed up, then splashed straight in. The icy cold made his heart race, even just around his feet and calves. He slowed, stood still for a moment, felt the waves splash hungrily up his thighs and tug at his feet, felt his toes turn numb, his muscles start to tremble, wished the cold liquid could just spread up through him and purge him of all his mistakes, all his memories, everything he’d done, everyone he’d loved. He clenched his teeth and threw his whole body into the water, and the cold took his breat
h away, but he thrashed his legs and arms as hard as he could until he breathed again, hard and fast, and it was as exhilarating as anything he’d experienced – until he started losing feeling in his fingers. He splashed out of the water and began to jump around on the sand. He flung his arms around in circles, circling round and round. Finally, tired out, he walked back over to his bag, blood pumping through every vein.

  As he shook out his trousers, something fell out of the pocket and clinked on a shell before landing on its side in the sand, regarding him with a beady eye. His rooster. He picked it up. ‘You’re still here, then,’ he said aloud. He remembered how captivated Clara had been by his little lion story. How would Nina have explained his disappearance to her?

  It dawned on him that, right now, she and Nina and Molly might not just be concerned and angry that he’d disappeared on them – they might be upset. Really upset. He’d been thoughtless and cruel. They’d cared about him. And even hearing some of the horrible memories that would always be boiling away in his head hadn’t put Nina off wanting to spend time with him, or even letting him look after her only daughter. On the contrary, she’d started to rely on him. And she’d changed too, since he’d met her, not only by opening up to him, but by getting her new life together without her husband, and volunteering to help other people in his position. But he’d just abandoned her.

  Veata, too. She’d worked so hard for him. And he’d let her sit in that waiting room while he attempted to get Gebre out. Maybe they suspected her of conspiracy. He hoped she wasn’t in trouble. He should at least have told her he was leaving London and abandoning his appeal. She deserved that much. He couldn’t get another hearing now, surely, especially after disappearing, when he was supposed to stay put and be closely monitored.