TODAY'S GUEST AUTHOR IS SARAH CONNELL, WHO IS SHARING AN EXCERPT FROM HER NOVEL 'WHERE ARE YOU NOW?' #RWRTeamBlog #ReadWriteRepeat
- Eva Bielby
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
WHERE ARE YOU NOW?
Six
Got you. There you are. He had caught him. It felt like catching, like a kind of hunt in the dark of evening, as Ousama was careful, necessarily secretive, able to blend in behind the brown debris of winter. Walter had found a rolled up blanket, wrapped in sheets of cardboard. It was tucked close to the fence behind one of the many blackberry thickets, only visible if you were looking for it very carefully.
It had started with the apples. One Saturday he left his spare scones, three of them buttered and wrapped in greaseproof. When he went down to see in the gloom of the next October dawn, there was no sign of the package. A week later when he had made a quantity of root vegetable soup, he put some in an old mug, hot when he left the house, covered in foil, prominently placed on the bench. He thought he would have liked to leave a note, with details of the vegetables he had used, a wish that it could be eaten still warm. But could this young man read English? He apparently spoke it well enough from their one brief encounter, but reading and understanding the alphabet—that might be different. In any case, what was he doing, thinking of notes for a stranger who is trespassing? What was he doing, secretly cooking for this stranger?
Walter was determined to speak to him again. One day, he left after putting food on the bench, locked the gate, walked home, turned round and came back. Very quietly he lifted the padlock on the gate, crept in as if he had no right to enter and there the true intruder was, on the bench, unfolding the silver paper to reveal the package of food.
‘Don’t get up, it’s okay, stay there; I only want to talk to you. Eat first.’
Ousama stopped, holding the piece of quiche awkwardly in the air, as Walter approached.
‘No, please, talk first, sir. I can eat this later.’ He put the food carefully down on the foil it had been wrapped in.
‘Well, if you like. How are you?’ This question sounded cheap and ridiculous to him.
‘Tell me about your situation. I am not going to do you any harm, I promise.’
‘I am an asylum seeker. I came here for that.'
'I see. When was that?’
'Five years ago. But I have been refused.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Perhaps because I am Palestinian.’
‘Surely not. That would be a reason to offer you…’
‘My papers are not good enough, they say. Palestine does not have an embassy here in the UK. So it is hard to get their support.’
This information fitted with the brief research Walter had already done. Despite his resistance to internet searches, now motivated by an idea he could not release himself from, he had been on several websites and knew that if people’s papers were not up to date or inconsistent in some way, the Home Office might refuse asylum whatever their circumstances. He had made a note of some facts about this, numbers and countries involved. His garden notebook had a dual purpose now.
Ousama and Walter sat silently for a few moments.
'You are from Gaza?'
Ousama's eyes flickered and then he nodded.
‘I am refused. So I can not work. I can not claim your benefit. I am no-one.’
He spread his hands in front. ‘Yet you see me. Here I am.’
‘You said you could be detained?’
‘Yes sir, I was detained. Once. They charge you, stand over you like thugs in uniform. Into a van and into detention with you. Off the streets, into a cell. They say it is not a cell. But it is.'
Walter nodded as if he understood, although he knew he did not.
‘They keep the light on, you know? All day, all night a bright blue light. In your cell for twenty days they held me like that.’ Walter made an attempt at a nod.
‘The second time I ran away.’
Walter stared. ‘You ran away from detention?’
‘From the men, the officers. I could not go back. I will not go back.’
Walter felt bewilderment swamp him. He had drawn close to something terrible.
‘I was living with an Iranian then. He was okay, but he liked me to cook for him and his friends, a kind of rent you might say. So I was in the kitchen chopping vegetables. The door bell rings.’
Walter watched the man’s hands exploring the story as he talked.
‘Six police officers. Yes, six of them, all wearing the jackets, the bomb proof ones. Big men, all together, pushing into the flat. One has the cuffs holding out ready for me.’
‘Why do they send six?’
Ousama shrugged. ‘Who knows what they do or why they do it. Maybe they think I am dangerous. Me, a bad man? I don’t know.’
‘I am in my vest, house shoes. They are like an army. Do you know that, sir?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘One holds out the cuffs. I am supposed to put out my arms and go. Go there, wait for how long, how many months, how many years maybe. I know what is like in there. People stay for years, you know. And not knowing.’ He lowered his head, grasping the back of his neck as he gazed down at the path. ‘You do not know when or why.’
Walter had tried to find out the specifics, had researched the stories online. Still, that had been onscreen. This man was telling him something he had experienced.
Ousama stood now in front of him, looked directly at him.
‘So I said to him, the one with the handcuffs, if you try to put those on me I will slit my throat, like this.’ He gestured with a sharp slice of his hand. For a second, the long blade of a knife flashed in Walter’s face.
‘What on earth happened?’
‘They all stand back. A circle of them. Standing there. They did not move. I had the knife in my hand. Holding only, no threat. I saw the door was open, the hall was empty. I dropped the knife and I ran. I ran and I ran.’
‘They did not follow me. I don’t know why.’ He laughed a grim short bark. ‘I ran down the stairs, out of the door, into the street. I ran and I ran. I could not go to one of those terrible places again.’
Walter felt as if a hole had opened in the ground or the sky. He had no idea how to respond. His research had not prepared him for this. The man was so angry. The tale so terrible.
‘You get lost there. Forgotten. Thrown away.’ Ousama’s eyes challenged Walter, a fierce stare he could not meet. He looked away at the plot as if to find an answer there.
Walter could hear their breathing in the evening air. Then Ousama lifted his head.
'No torture at least. Not like my country.’
**********
*****THERE WILL BE NO BLOG POST ON FRIDAY 5TH SEPTEMBER*****
COMING SOON: ON SUNDAY 7TH SEPTEMBER, OUR GUEST AUTHOR SLOT WILL FEATURE ELIZABETH GREEN.
