style="font-size:15px;"> 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.
Bang b-bang bang. Bang bang.
Yonas jerked awake. More knocks, louder. He rubbed his eyes.
Bang bang bang bang.
This person was persistent. Yonas flushed. He needed to pee now, after sitting on the toilet for hours without lifting the lid. He decided he would try. This was the purpose of a toilet, after all.
Bang bang bang bang bang.
‘Just a minute.’ His bladder was bursting but nothing would come out – he was too panicked. He zipped up, cleared his throat and unlocked the door.
‘Ticket, please, sir.’ An official-looking man was standing in the corridor with a small machine in his hands, and a blonde woman with a child were behind him, staring.
Yonas swallowed. ‘But, I already…’
‘You’ve been in here for a while now, sir.’
Yonas’s kneecaps turned to goo. ‘I just came in,’ he said.
‘No you didn’t!’ the woman shrilled. ‘We’ve been waiting ages! My little girl here needs a wee. Come on, Evie.’ She shoved her child ahead of her, past Yonas, followed her into the toilet and locked the door to his sanctuary.
Yonas gulped. ‘I have a stomach problem,’ he improvised, then grimaced and clutched his belly, leaning over as if in agony, thinking of his ballooning bladder. He did feel pretty ill right now – though that was probably the terror.
‘I still need your ticket, sir,’ the conductor said flatly.
Yonas straightened up, trying to think fast. Behind the conductor, he noticed a smart man in a suit, with blond hair and glasses, who seemed to be watching disapprovingly. He felt inside his empty pockets, as if he were about to find a crisp orange train ticket in there, and squeezed his little wooden rooster so hard the beak almost pierced his skin. Then he looked up at the conductor again, into those pale hazel eyes, trying to connect, to convey wordlessly how badly he needed his help. ‘Sir, I do not know where the ticket has gone,’ he said quietly. ‘I must have dropped it. I am sorry – I am not myself today. I have just heard that… my brother and my parents have been killed.’
The conductor’s face warped into an expression that was both sceptical and slightly aghast. Yonas imagined his own face in it, like a mirror, the moment when he first heard that news. It was so vivid still, that day, back in the revolutionary school – he was preparing to put on his first play, setting up the tarpaulin stage under an acacia tree, with Gebre’s set painted onto old sheets, hardly able to contain his excitement about the moment when the actors stepped in front of the audience… when they were interrupted. Yonas and Melat. Come with me. The commander. What had they done wrong? I have bad news for you. There was a surprise attack today, by enemy MiGs. Your parents and brothers were hit… The assault of those words, their cold, factual finality. . .
A hand was patting his back. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that, mate,’ the conductor said, his voice softer than before. ‘But I do still need to check your ticket. You sure you’ve lost it?’
Yonas jabbed his fingers in his pockets once more. But the conductor squeezed his arm.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Look, just make sure you hold onto it next time, okay?’
Yonas looked up at him, astounded, but just nodded mutely.
And then he heard a series of clicks, camera-like. Behind the conductor, that blond man was holding something in the air. Yonas tensed. Who was he? Why would he be taking pictures? Was he plainclothes police? Immigration? There was nowhere to run…
Sure enough, the man approached the conductor and asked if this passenger was travelling with a valid ticket. Yonas bit the insides of his cheeks. But then, bizarrely, the conductor told the man to back off and mind his own business. This seemed to anger the blond man who then claimed he was a politician. As the two men locked horns, Yonas saw his chance to slip away.
Down in the furthest carriage, the toilet was occupied, so he slouched down into a seat, so the top of his head couldn’t be seen from behind. He realized he was rubbing his scarred fingertips together: a tic he’d developed since they were burned, as if he could magic the sensitivity back. Across the aisle an elderly lady was looking at him sideways, but when she saw him turn to her, she immediately pretended to return to reading her newspaper. She was wearing pristine pointed leather shoes and her hair was set in immaculate ringlets, like a wig, so white it was almost purple. Maybe it was actually a very pale purple. The headline on her newspaper read:
SMUGGLING GANGS WANT TO SNEAK CALAIS MIGRANTS INTO BRITAIN TO COMMIT CRIMES HERE
Yonas
