Caryl Phillips - Foreigners

I remember he always used to wear a big black coat, and he was kind of hunched over. But not like life had beaten him down or anything. He just had this big black coat that seemed a bit too heavy for him. In the evenings I'd come out of where I lived on Mexborough Drive and walk down to the main road — Chapeltown Road. I'd be on my way up to my sister's place to look after her twins, and I'd meet him around about Button Hill. Near where the library and the business centre are now. Somewhere between these two. The fact is, Button Hill isn't much of a hill. Or much of a street really, more like a little alley that leads down on to Chapeltown Road. But this is where I'd meet David.

I was fourteen. Back then, we were taught that you always had to be kind to your elders and betters. We lived a sheltered church life, and so I always acknowledged David and he'd just say, 'Take care, behave yourself.' That's all. 'Take care, behave yourself.' But it happened regularly enough so that we sort of got to know each other. I thought David was something to do with the university. He had that kind of attitude about him. Like he was a very intelligent man. Judging by the way he spoke, he didn't seem to me like he was a vagrant or anything. And underneath that big black coat I think he had on a dark suit. He tended to have his hands in his pockets and he looked cold. His face used to worry me. His face always looked bruised, as if he'd been scratched. It must have been 1968 or 1969, and you know he wasn't standing upright. He was a little hunched over.

I remember one night when the police were out on the street in numbers. They had come to move David on. I asked a policeman, 'Please, what has he done? He has done nothing. He just stands here.' But there was something about the policeman — about how he looked at me — that frightened me and so I ran off. That night the police arrested a lot of people and put them in Black Marias — you know, the big black vans. That's what we used to call them, Black Marias. The police took a load of people away, including David. They'd only come to get David, but people stood up for him. The people on the street were protecting David and objecting to the police. While the police were trying to move David on and telling him, 'You shouldn't be here,' the young people gathered all around him. I mean, he wasn't doing anything, he was just standing by the wall like he always did. I thought he was such a humble man. He was polite. I couldn't see anything that was wrong with him. He just used to stand there with his big black overcoat. But, I don't think he had the same relationship with everybody. He didn't speak to other people, but he spoke to me.

After the night of the disturbance, I saw him maybe a day or so later. I could see that he had been beaten for his face was all mashed up. He wasn't standing at the bottom of Button Hill, he was walking up Chapeltown Road as if he was in pain. I was fourteen. I never saw David after that. There was no other exchange after the night of the disturbance on the street. When I saw him that final time he was dragging his feet. Something had changed. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that something was different.

I remember crying when I heard that he'd died. I felt it hard. Like I'd lost a true friend. All we'd done was exchange a few words over a period of months, but I would never dare say anything to anybody about having talked with a man. I was a Christian and I knew that it was taboo for a young girl like me to talk with a man. When I heard that he'd died I wrote a poem about David. All the feelings were locked up inside and I couldn't tell my parents. I remember that I did find a way to tell my sisters, and they understood. But I could never tell Mum that I knew somebody who'd been in trouble with the police. I could never admit anything to her about what was really going on out there on the streets, and so it was like I began to live two lives. I was angry. At the time of David's death everybody was angry. Here was a black man and you tell me, what was he doing in the river? We knew that the police were always trying to move him on, but something else was wrong. What was he doing dead in the river?

In the early seventies, the London Black Panthers began to infiltrate Chapeltown. They kept telling us that things were possible. They insisted that things could be changed, but they made it clear that we couldn't do it openly. They kept mentioning David, and they were very aware of him. Somebody put graffiti about him on a wall. It was near where we would all meet. It just said 'Remember Oluwale'. And we did. We knew that we had to have a strategy, and so we became even more angelic during the day, and then at night we'd go out and do things. His death made us brave. It made us more militant, and it gave us an increased sense of wanting to tease the police. We no longer felt the same about them. We would shout at them. We would throw stones at them and then run off down the backstreets. We knew which houses had cellars that we could dive into and hide, and nobody ever knew what we'd done, or what we were doing. But we couldn't take this rebelliousness back into our homes. It really was like being two people. Once the head of my school called me in and asked me if I would meet with the police as they were trying to become more community-oriented. I went home and told my sister and she looked at me and said, 'No way, absolutely not.' So I had to go back to school and tell the headmaster no. The police were trying to mend the community, but they'd already shown their hand and done something which let us know that our community didn't matter to them. That was how they felt about us. We'd always known it, but now we knew it for sure. We had evidence.

But David wasn't a West Indian like us, he was a West African so his death didn't galvanise the community in the way that it might have. There would have been even more trouble if he'd been a West Indian. But he wasn't. The area around St Mary's Close had a lot of African students living there. I would sometimes see him on Chapeltown Road walking from that direction down towards Button Hill, and maybe that's why I thought that he was a student. My sister lived at 276 Chapeltown Road. That was when I would see David by Button Hill. At the time she was married to a Nigerian, and he was studying in Liverpool. My brother-in-law used to take the last train to Liverpool and at nights my sister needed help with the twins, so that's when I would go up there, usually between ten and eleven. That's when I would see David. He didn't seem West Indian to look at, so I must have known that he was African. In this period we thought of most of the Africans as people who carried briefcases and who studied hard before getting ready to go back home to Africa. We, the West Indians, were mainly workers not students, and of course we also said that we were going home. But in reality we weren't going anywhere. Few of us ever went back home.

I called him David, I remember that much. I knew his name. Somebody must have told me his name, but I don't know how I knew it. He struck me as highly intelligent. Not crazy at all. You could see that he had a depth to him. Whatever it was that was inside of him he just kept it to himself. I can remember him looking at me. He had a powerful stare, but I have to admit he did look poor. I thought he was a poorer person than all of us, but as a devout Christian girl I just wanted to give him respect.

David, do you remember this girl? The fourteen-year-old girl who would walk up Chapeltown Road and see you near the bottom of Button Hill. She knew your name. Your history you kept locked up inside of you. Shut tight, out of sight. But your name, David. She knew your name, and it felt good on her tongue. She smiled and looked into your eyes, and you told her to take care of herself. You waited for her and basked in her smile, and exchanged your few words, and then you watched as she disappeared from view. And then what? She didn't know that you had nowhere else to go. Once she'd passed out of sight you didn't linger for too long. You moved on your way. Perhaps you wondered how you could ask the girl her name without the full weight of the question frightening her away. But in your heart you knew that you would never ask. Did she remind you of somebody? A sister? Your mother? Back home, a long time ago before this nightmare descended upon your young shoulders. Back home, where you spoke of your life in the future tense. Back home, this girl with fine manners and good breeding might have been your wife. You studied hard at your school under the guidance of Christian missionaries. You worked with a burning desire to escape to your future as soon as possible. Your parents loved you, but they recoiled in shame for they knew they could no longer protect you from your ambitions. In their hearts they were proud, but the books that you studied had already carried you beyond them and to a crossroads. They took their place behind you, for history had chosen you and your future was calling. You turned and said farewell to your parents, and then set out on your journey. 1949. Yoruba boy. Going to England to make a life for yourself. Eighteen-year-old Yoruba boy stowing away in the dead of night, trying to make yourself invisible in the belly of a ship bound for England. Leaving home for the rich white man's world. Dark black night. You felt the heaving and creaking of the cargo ship, the Temple Star , as it laboured away from the Lagos quayside and out into the waters that were slick with spilled oil and clogged with debris. You felt the ship rising and falling as it moved beyond this tumult and into the clearer waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Leaving home. Yoruba boy. With your dreams of being an engineer locked up in your young heart. You were unable to come out of hiding and take one final look at the line of lights that illuminated the coastline of your vanishing world. You were unable to wave to your mother. Unable to stand straight like a small, thin manboy and bid farewell to your Nigeria. Unable to promise the wind and the moon and the stars that one day soon you would return as a successful man with a twinkle in your eyes and with England tucked away in your jacket, ready to produce and display it to any who might wish to glimpse your pocketed jewel. You lay, instead, hidden in the bowels of the ship listening to the roar of the malevolent water as the Atlantic Ocean asserted its authority over the clumsy vessel, tossing its rusty bulk high and then abandoning it so that it crashed back to the watery earth with a loud slap. Yoruba boy. Young lion leaving Lagos, Nigeria, in the oil-rich heart of the British Empire. Cold and tired, chilled in your young bones, curled up like a newborn babe. A hand reached down and pushed you. You opened your eyes and saw your saviour glowering at you, disgusted that he had discovered a nigger on his ship. Yoruba boy travelling to meet his future. Please, do not look at me in this way. I desire only to reach England in safety. To travel across this terrifying water to England, and thereafter to continue with my life. But he stared down at you, didn't he, David? As though he was eager to throw you into the water that frightened you so much. Toss you away into the open mouth of the sea. But he did nothing. You uncurled your tight, stiff body and stood uneasily. Water. You asked him for water to drink. Water. But the man said nothing. He simply stared at you and watched your mouth moving like that of a fish. Water. And then many days later the water came to an end. There was no more water, there was only land, and an arrival in a moribund grey coastal town in the north of England, among a colourless clutter of wharves and barges, and cranes and container boxes. Your eyes feasted upon the grey vista of Hull at the mouth of the River Humber on the east coast of England, and you held your breath. Yoruba boy in England with a whole life in front of him. But first, prison. The policeman handcuffed you and led you down the plank to the shore while hostile eyes burned a hole in your thin body. You had imposed yourself upon them. Your heart sank, and for the first time it occurred to you that these people might cast you back upon the water and attempt to send you home. But they said nothing. They simply locked you in a cell and told you to wait. Wait. Their food would not stay in your stomach. You did not enjoy the contempt with which the guards looked at you. In fact, there was no joy to these men, to this country, to this prison, but it was too late for you had crossed the water and arrived. However, if only they would allow you to remain in their country then you felt sure that one day you might find joy. Eventually they bullied you into a courtroom and imposed twenty-eight days in prison upon you, after which they promised you that you would be permitted to enter British life. Twenty-eight days only. Twenty-eight days to freedom. But they did not take you from the courtroom and accompany you back to the familiar cell. They put you in a van and turned inland, away from the sea, away from Hull, and they travelled for fifty miles with their Yoruba cargo in the back of their vehicle. They furrowed their way towards the centre of England. Leeds. In Leeds the jail is Victorian. Its high Gothic walls are imposing and frightening. An extremely narrow gate. Armley jail. Your twenty-eight days would be spent here, away from the sea, in the heart of England. And after twenty-eight days of misshapened dreams that presented themselves as nightmares, they released you into this city of Leeds. To go back to Hull would be to suggest a return. No. You were cold. A teenager. Already a veteran of an Atlantic passage and prison. But now you were free and ready. But that was a long time ago, David. It would be nearly twenty years before you would meet the nameless girl at the bottom of Button Hill. Twenty years in which to live a life in Leeds in the heart of England. David, do you remember the girl? She did not know your history, but she knew your name. You waited for her and bathed in her smile, and exchanged your few words. And then you watched as she disappeared from view. Yoruba boy from Lagos who, on arriving in Leeds, thought only of himself in the future tense. A teenager at home in Leeds. Alone. I will stay in Leeds. No more water. No water. You decided. And then later. Imagine, a fourteen-year-old girl with manners from the Old World who showed you respect. And after she had passed you by it was time for you to leave Button Hill. You walked down Chapeltown Road towards the heart of your city. The language of hope no longer sat on your tongue. It was difficult to speak in the future tense. But the appearance of the girl gave you hope. The girl seemed to know who you were even if your city misunderstood you. But after twenty years you refused to leave your city.