The Incomers

by Moira McPartlin

  ‘We need to take him to hospital,’ the priest repeats. ‘Go to my house and wait there.’

  Even though Ellie knows that the priest will take longer to reach the house, she trots all the way. She should have been braver; she should have done more to save him herself. The priest had looked anxious; what if Nat were still to die and she had not lifted a finger to save him? What would his father say then? He would be sure to beat her and she would deserve it; she would welcome it; she would hope that he would beat her to death.

  The paint-peeled door stands closed against Ellie. She looks towards the forest and wants her baby in her arms but does not know which way the priest will come.

  ‘Please make him well,’ she prays in her own language. ‘If he lives I will be a good Catholic and go to church every Sunday. I will be a good wife and will never complain again.’

  She will not move from this spot until the priest brings her baby but she is there only a moment when the big man-woman comes out of the paint-peeled back door.

  ‘What do you want? Get away with you.’ She waves her arm as if chasing the cattle from her vegetable patch. ‘Shoo! Go home now.’ The words are strong, but her eyes stare white. She looks like the old women in Ellie’s village when the sorcerer comes to collect his provisions.

  ‘Shoo! Go away!’ she says, waving a dish towel at Ellie.

  ‘No!’ Ellie screams at her. ‘I wait for Father!’ Ellie says as she turns from the man-woman’s frightened stare and walks in the direction she hopes the priest will come then she stops and runs back to the house. ‘I wait for Father.’

  His hair is almost dry by the time he steps round the house.

  ‘Nat has a nasty cut on his forehead and he is still coughing up water. He should be fine but we need to get him checked out.’

  Nat’s head is cuddled into the priest’s collar and his hand holds the lapel in a tight fist. Ellie has to prise his fingers apart to release the grip. When she has him in her arms she can feel his heart beat fast as he sobs into her neck.

  ‘Oh poor baby, my baby, what have I done to you? You must bawl for me again.’ Ellie kisses his head.

  ‘Aggie, can you please phone Mr Mason up at the house. Tell him we need him to come here immediately. And bring a blanket down from the airing cupboard; this child must be kept dry.’ The words only just make it out of the priest’s mouth when he begins to cough hard. He takes a soggy handkerchief from his jacket pocket and covers his mouth. Ellie does not like the sound of that cough and knows that a swim in the river is not the best medicine.

  ‘Come on. Let’s get him into the house until James comes. ’

  Father Grattan leads Ellie through the back door into a small kitchen with a white enamel cooker. When the brown and white dog bounds in from an inside room, Nat whimpers and digs his head further into Ellie’s neck. The dog capers around the priest’s feet and jumps up on his wet clothes.

  ‘Get down, ye daft brute,’ he says, grabbing the dog’s collar and pushing him to one side.

  The priest places a light hand on Ellie’s elbow and leads her into a sitting room lined with books, more books than Ellie has seen in her whole life. It smells of the priest; stale cigarettes and damp dog hair.

  ‘You must get out of these wet clothes,’ the priest says.

  ‘No, ’s fine, just my skirt.’

  Aggie Aitkin comes back into the room and hands a rough grey blanket to Ellie. ‘Mrs Watson says Mr Mason is out to the town at the moment. I have left a message for him to come here when he gets back.’

  Nat begins to shiver as Ellie removes his clothes.

  ‘I will take you. James can come to the hospital when he gets back. I’ll go and change and get you an overcoat to put on.’ He throws a bunch of keys at his housekeeper, almost hitting her on the head.

  ‘Aggie, bring the car out of the garage for me, please.’

  The old maid jumps from her sentry position by the door. ‘Yes, Father.’

  Ellie has no idea ordinary women can drive. The only women she knows who can drive are nuns. She has never seen a Hollyburn woman drive and yet here is this old dame, able and willing. She must be a man after all. Before Father Grattan collects her and Nat from the front room she hears him speaking on the telephone. She wants to go and grab it off him, she wants him to hurry. They must get Nat to hospital.

  The interior of the black car also smells of stale smoke and is beginning to make Ellie feel nauseous. The priest’s overcoat she wears is covered in dog hairs; her wet skirt is bundled up beside her on the seat. Nat had been sick over the coat in the priest’s house but with the help of Aggie Aitkin Ellie managed to wipe most of it off although the smell clings to her and she knows this is not helping her. Nat has fallen into a daze on her lap and she is not happy with the dull colour of his skin. She wants to pinch his cheek to wake him and to bring back her giggling lively baby boy.

  ‘How far is the hospital?’

  ‘Not far, in the middle of town. Don’t worry, we’ll soon be there, we’ll go straight to Emergency.’

  A couple of ambulances are lined up in front of double doors. The priest draws up behind them and jumps out of his side to open the car door for Ellie.

  ‘Hey! Ye cannae park there!’ one of the ambulance men shouts.

  When the priest stands, exposing his dog collar, the man holds up his hand.

  ‘Sorry, Father, didnae realise.’

  The walk through the double doors into the warm waiting room drains Ellie of all strength, her mouth fills with bile and her legs begin to buckle. She clutches the priest’s sleeve to prevent herself from falling over in a faint.

  There is an assortment of a dozen or so white people scattered around the seats; some read papers, some stare at the wall. There does not seem to be much illness in the room; everyone has limbs and there is little evidence of blood, but they all have the same grey unhealthy complexion of the Hollyburn villagers.

  Behind a counter sits a woman in a black suit. When they approach the woman looks up at the priest and with a bored expression says, ‘Yes, can I help you?’

  The priest holds Ellie’s elbow. ‘We need to see a doctor quick.’

  ‘My boy, he fall in the river.’ Ellie cannot find her tongue.

  ‘Your boy, he fall in the river,’ the bored woman repeats. She pushes her wheeled chair back and reaches into a tray behind her, pulls out a sheet of paper, then with her feet shuffling she moves herself and her chair back to the counter and shoves the paper towards Ellie.

  ‘Fill this in.’

  Ellie looks at Father Grattan.

  ‘My boy is very ill. He needs a doctor. His head is cut, he is not speaking.’

  ‘Fill in the form and then we will get someone to look at him.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand, Miss, this boy almost drowned, I had to perform CPR on him.’ He places his hands on the counter. ‘Mrs Mason will fill your forms in shortly. This boy is a British citizen. Get a doctor now.’

  The bored woman looks up at him and tries to maintain her ambivalent stance, but Ellie can see her eyes waver.

  ‘Take a seat.’ She rises and disappears through an inner set of double doors. She returns a few minutes later with a nurse in a blue uniform who takes Nat from Ellie. Nat does not object because he still has not woken from his stupor. But when Ellie rises to go with him the nurse holds up her hand.

  ‘No, I’m sorry but you must fill in the paperwork. Then you can come through.’

  Ellie looks at the paper. ‘I do not have a pen.’

  Father Grattan makes to take the paper from her. ‘It will be okay, Ellie. I will help you fill this in.’

  ‘I do not need help, I just need a pen.’

  The bored woman from behind the counter holds one up.

  Ellie finds her palms sweat and pinching the pen between her fingers is like trying to pick an angel fish from the fisherman’s basket. She rubs her hand on her skirt and concentrates hard on her handwriting. Her eyes fill with tears when
she writes in the boxes: nationality and place of birth. She falters at the part that says name and address of doctor. She looks at the priest and he takes the pen and fills in the box for her.

  He takes the form and hands it to the woman. ‘Now take her to her baby.’

  The same nurse returns and leads Ellie through the double doors.

  ‘How is my baby?’ Ellie says to the girl as they walk along the corridor.’

  ‘He is with the doctor.’ The nurse replies in the same bored voice as the woman at the desk.

  She holds back a curtain and ushers Ellie to a bedside. Nat’s face is covered with a clear plastic mask. His naked body looks so small and dark on the long white hospital bed.

  ‘Will he be alright?’ She looks, for the first time, to the man in the white coat standing beside the bed. His face is black. Not as black as hers, but he is unmistakably African. Egyptian, possibly.

  ‘Can you heal your little brother?’ Ellie says, but before she even has time to embrace the warmth she feels at this fellow’s presence the doctor shouts at her,

  ‘He is not my brother! This is an NHS hospital, woman, not a black African village market.’

  Ellie steps back. Her face stings with force of his words, she cannot find her voice.

  He turns back to Nat.

  ‘What has happened to this child?’ He sneers the words.

  ‘This is my child, he needs help, I used to be a nurse; I know.’

  She forces the words from her mouth, but they are small, insignificant and stupid. She is back in her country where the men treat their women like shit. Beat them if they do not work in the fields from sunrise to sunset, beat them if they ask for some money to buy clothes and pencils for their children, beat them because they are bored during the rainy season. She is back in the mission hospital where doctors are kings and male porters and toilet cleaners are treated better than trained nurses. She is a Black African back in her own continent, where prejudice against skin colour is everywhere. Here is this lighter-skinned doctor treating her like an animal. Nowhere is she safe from such treatment.

  When she speaks again to the doctor it is with eyes cast down and in a small African woman’s voice:

  ‘He fell in the Hollyburn river and the priest fished him out.’

  ‘How long was he in the water? Did he stop breathing? Did he always maintain his pulse?’ He touches the head wound. ‘Did he lose consciousness?’

  ‘I do not know. I was on the other river bank. The priest saved him; he gave him his own breath.’

  The doctor’s eyes seem to burrow deeper into his forehead. ‘Well, why am I wasting my time talking to you? Where is this priest now?’

  Ellie nods towards the curtain.

  ‘The waiting room.’

  ‘Then go and get him,’ he shouts.

  Ellie shrinks back from the words but does not move. She holds tight of Nat’s hand. ‘No, I do not leave my baby again.’

  The doctor stretches his back and rises in front of her like a cobra. ‘Do as I bid, woman. Do you want your child to live or die?’

  ‘He is not going to die. Look, he is alive, you are a doctor. You can keep him alive, can you not?’

  ‘Go and get the priest, I say.’

  The curtain opens and a small grey-haired woman with spectacles perched on her nose steps into the cubicle and pulls the curtain back behind her.

  ‘What is going on here? I can hear you bellowing all over the ward.’

  ‘She will not go and get the priest from the waiting room.’

  The older lady peers at Ellie. ‘This lady looks as though she is concerned for her child. Call a nurse to fetch the priest or go and get him yourself.’

  The old lady glowers at the man with murder in her eyes.

  ‘Go on then! What are you waiting for, man? I will stay with them while you get the priest.’

  The old lady walks round the table and pulls back the eyelid of the sleeping child then checks his pulse. As she does this she smiles towards Ellie. ‘You have a beautiful boy here.’

  Ellie looks at the closed curtains; her voice dries up again like a river bed between the rains.

  ‘Don’t worry about him; he is the same with all women here. I expect he is worse with you because you’re African too.’ She gives a little chuckle and pats Ellie’s hand.

  ‘One day all women will be able to stand up to the likes of him. You just need to get into a position of power first. I know it’s harder for you but that day will come too, I am sure of it.’ She looks at her watch. ‘Although I doubt I will live to see the day.’ She nods toward Nat. ‘I am sure he will be fine. He’s had a bit of a shock and we will need to keep him in overnight for observation. They bounce back so quickly, little ones, don’t they? My two boys were never away from the emergency ward when they were wee.’

  The black doctor returns with Father Grattan and James and the old lady disappears behind the curtain as if she had never been.

  James pushes towards the bed. ‘Will he be alright?’ he says as he puts his arm around Ellie and she leans in further to him feeling his warmth.

  ‘He will be fine, sir,’ the doctor says. ‘We just need to establish the history of the accident. Perhaps you can take his mother for a cup of tea while I discuss with the priest what happened because the mother does not seem to know.’

  James scowls at the doctor but does not say anything as he takes Ellie’s hand and tries to lead her through the curtain.

  ‘I am not leaving.’

  The doctor sighs.

  James pulls his back straight; he is taller than everyone in the room. He darts through the curtain and returns with a chair, which he places at the other side of the bed and guides Ellie over to sit down.

  ‘We will sit here quietly if you don’t mind. My wife wants to stay with our son.’ James looks down at Ellie. ‘I will get us some tea,’ he says, almost as a question, and all Ellie can summon is a nod.

  The Pairty Line

  ‘Whit aboot that wee pickaninny bairn nearly droonin’, eh?’

  ‘Ah ken, that bloody Carol Wilson should be locked up.’

  ‘Is she no too young fur that?’

  ‘They could pit her in Borstal – imagine, stealing a baby. There’s no telling whit she might dae next.’

  ‘That pair wee black wumman must huv been oot her mind wi’ worry.’

  ‘And her no’ able tae swim tae. She couldnae even try tae save the bairn. Imagine whit she’d huv been like if he’d really droon’d?’

  ‘How come she cannae swim?’

  ‘Nane o’ thum can, the blacks like. Huv ye niver noticed at the Olympics or athletics – nae black swimmers.’

  ‘That’s weird, how’s that then, eh?’

  ‘It’s thir noses, thir too wide, cannae pit thir heids under the water. If they dae their noses fill up and they droon.’

  ‘Well, ah niver kent that. Thir no’ like us at aw ur they?’

  ‘Naw, but still nae reason tae steal thir bairns jist the same.’

  ‘Jessie MacIvers telt me she’s planning tae go doon the road and ask the wee black lassie if she wants tae pit ony o’ her veggies in the village show.’

  ‘That’ll be fine as long as she disnae beat Duck Donald.’

  ‘Oh, bit whit a laugh it wid be if she did. We’d niver hear the end o’ it.’

  Chapter Twenty Five

  The day after the accident James and Ellie sit at the kitchen table and wait in silence for the visitor who is due to call. The house is too quiet without Nat. The doctors are not happy with his breathing and because his arms are painful with the wrenching he received from Carol, he is kept under sedation until the swelling of the joints has settled down. James phoned the hospital that morning and was told to call back the next day, he may be discharged then.

  Ellie looks at her husband and sees him as he is. The man who sits opposite is not the man who rescued her from the dusty road, he is not the white man who strolled into her village and told her brothers tha
t he wanted to take their sister into his own world. As the West African sun dipped below the horizon of her life, her husband transformed from the proud eagle soaring above all other animals in the land into the fickle hare that scurries from one situation to the next, never stopping or bothering to deal with his life. The promise James made to Ellie only weeks before has been hidden in the back of his mind and she knows he will never resurrect it as long as he has doors to slam and his work to hide behind.

  The day before as she sat by Nat’s bed and listened to the exchange between her husband and the doctor, she realised that they were both similar. At first she had thought the doctor would sympathise with her. She thought his prejudice of her darker skin would be diluted amongst all these white faces, but this was not the case. He had treated James with respect and Ellie as a cockroach on the ground to be stamped on. And James, her husband, had appeared not to notice.

  During the night Ellie had listened for Nat crying out for her, even though she knew he was not there. She relived the moments by the burn and reminded herself that she had overcome her fear. She had almost had Nat in her grasp before the priest plunged in. But she had left it too late; she should have been braver and crossed the pipe. If they had fallen in they would have fallen together but at least her son would not have had to endure that terror alone. Like the rushing of the river, the last few months had been tumultuous for her, but not for Nat. He has thrived in this country. What life would she be taking him to if she returned to her fatherland? A life of war and hunger and corruption? Unlike the crossing of the pipe, Ellie cannot leave the fate of Nat’s future until serious damage has been done; she must decide soon.

  Constable Stewart has a small red flush to his cheeks when James ushers him into the room and points him to the seat with the new red covers while Ellie puts the kettle on.

  ‘Why isn’t the sergeant dealing with this?’ James demands, his voice deeper than normal.

  ‘The sergeant is on his holidays, I am afraid I have been left to deal with this serious matter.’

  ‘Well, do you have any news for us?’

  ‘About the abduction, Sir? Yes, I do.’ He takes the small note book with the dirty elastic band out from his tunic pocket.