Ellen Wiles - The Invisible Crowd

RAPIST ASYLUM SEEKER WHO DUMPED VICTIM ON RUBBISH TIP IS RELEASED AFTER BEING TWO HOURS AWAY FROM DEPORTATION

The toilet door snapped shut and Yonas let out a long breath. The space was tiny, but for a train toilet it was amazingly clean. It barely even smelled of toilet. He looked cautiously into the tiny mirror above the sink – then jerked away. Surely that bearded scarecrow wasn’t really him. He splashed his face, reached for the snail of toilet roll, dabbed a soft wad of it against his cheeks, stuffed some in his pocket for later, then sat down on the toilet lid to think. He failed to stop himself replaying Osman’s ruby-red eyes, those crooked toes…

Slowly and smoothly, so that he could barely feel it, the train moved off. The glass of the little window was clouded. Yonas managed to shove it open an inch, then leaned onto the edge of the sink and stared out of the gap at the receding station. Rows of neat houses passed by, more and more quickly, before all the buildings petered out, giving way to rolling green fields and low, misty skies, leaving Osman and Gebre behind.

Yonas dropped his head to his knees and groaned. What was Gebre thinking, staying on? They’d gone through so much together to get to this country. Why did it have to end with an argument?

‘Okay, we need to leave in five,’ Yonas had whispered. ‘Ready?’

Gebre had followed him silently outside. ‘I don’t know what your genius plan is,’ he said when they were round the corner, ‘but we can’t leave Osman. He’s still not speaking and he can’t walk – it’s our fault.’

‘It’s not our fault!’

‘It kind of is. We can’t abandon him.’

‘He’s in a bad way, but he’ll recover – Abraham did, remember? And if we get out of here we have a chance to rescue him; we can report Aziz, and that way Osman might be taken to hospital, or a safe home of some kind – he’s only a kid, they’ll go easy on him.’

‘So how would we report Aziz, then? By turning ourselves in?’

‘There must be a way.’

‘Osman wanted to come with us.’

‘Well, he can’t now,’ Yonas found himself snapping. ‘Look, the others are taking care of him, and Aziz will leave him alone after this. Plus, if we leave it’ll teach the bastard that torture doesn’t work.’

‘It could make him do it more. To the others.’

‘Well then, the same could apply to us. We need to survive , Gebre. I have to earn some money to send to Melat… Look, here’s the plan – we hitch a ride on the rubbish truck. If it works we’ll be miles away in minutes. And it’s about to arrive – have you got your photo?’

‘We can’t get on a rubbish truck in daylight! The driver will see us.’

‘He might not. We’ve done much riskier things. Gebre, I cannot stay one day longer with that monster. And we don’t have to – we’re not in prison any more.’

‘Well, I don’t like it either, but I’m not going to run off now and get into more trouble just because you’ve suddenly decided it’s time. I’m done with your reckless plans – if it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have got ourselves into prison in the first place.’

‘But… Gebre, it was a joint project! We had to tell the world…’

‘No, you came up with the idea, and I followed, like always. Well, not any more.’

‘But we got all the way here, didn’t we? Come on, the rubbish truck will be here any second! We’re not seriously going to split now?’

‘If you won’t wait, then go. I’ve always dragged you down anyway.’

‘No…’

But Gebre had already turned his back and walked inside. Yonas wanted to yell at him to come back, but that would alert Aziz, and he could already hear the rumble coming down the track.

Bang bang bang. Yonas jerked up straight. The handle of the train toilet door rattled, and then… nothing. After a few seconds, he relaxed a little and listened to the gentle chunters and rumbles of the train as it grunted towards his new life. So, he and Gebre were apart. For a while. But Gebre would follow soon. It would be easy enough for them to find each other – he had memorized Auntie’s number too. And maybe he would bring Osman along, fully recovered, and Yonas and Auntie could help them both get settled. In the meantime, there was no point regretting the decision to go. The deed was done and it was just too painful to dwell on separation from Gebre, just as it was on leaving Melat, leaving Eritrea – he had to focus on the now, on the near future, on survival practicalities. Top priority: getting off the train without getting caught, and then getting some coins together to phone Auntie. From her house he would be able to phone Melat, tell her he’d made it, and find out how they were all doing. He might even get time to tell her a bit about what England was like, about these scenes out of the train window, rolling velvety hills, plump clumps of trees, cotton-wool sheep swimming in verdant grass…

But she would ask after Gebre. What would he say? She was a bit like a big sister to him too, ever since his father was disappeared all those years ago. The train shuddered past an old church spire, a farm, some glossy black cows, a sports car whizzing along a perfectly tarmacked road…

Yonas wished he could tell Gebre how simple it had been to escape after all. More than that – when ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ came on the radio, while he sat there in the truck next to Bin Man Joe, as if he were getting a lift from an old friend, it had felt like fate, like it was meant to happen exactly that way, almost like his father was sitting in the back, singing along out of tune, getting ready to tell his son for the hundredth time how, when he was studying in America, every student knew the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s songs, because they meant freedom… If only he could tell his father that he’d finally made it to the UK! Even fifteen years on, he couldn’t shake the ridiculous idea in the back of his mind that his parents might both reappear one day, open a door when he least expected it, laughing as if they had been playing an attenuated game of hide and seek all this time. He leaned his forehead against the window and felt it judder, bouncing his brain around in his skull, and it took him back to that trip on the steam train to the beach at Massawa with his family when he was little, how he’d craned out of the window in awe at the rugged brown mountains and the dazzling sapphire skein of the Red Sea…

This train will shortly be arriving at Doncaster. Change here for trains to London King’s Cross.

Yonas leapt up from the toilet seat and stood, poised for a swift exit. When the train shuddered to a halt, he unlocked the toilet door, slipped out and stepped off. He walked to the opposite platform and stood against a wall, making sure nobody had seen him, before figuring out which platform the next London train was going from, then went to wait at the far end of it, behind a pillar. The next train to arrive – on – platform – three…

He got on last, beelined for another toilet and took possession, felt himself breathe again. He sat on the loo, propped his arms on the edge of the sink unit and cradled his heavy forehead, allowing it to roll gently from side to side.

It was a strange moment when Bin Man Joe drove off, leaving him outside the station alone. He’d felt naked and vulnerable and, for the first time, black. Literally everyone walking past him was white, luminously pale – a procession of ghosts. He became conscious that he was wearing his dirty overalls still, while the men all wore smart jeans or branded trainers, Nike, Adidas, Reebok… And the girls! Yonas hadn’t seen a female human being for months. He watched a couple of slick-haired teenage girls go by arm in arm, cheeping with giggles, their jeans clinging so tightly that they showed every curve, and he imagined Sarama outshining all of them in her baggy camouflage.