with no food. We only survived because we came across a shepherd’s water container in a valley so we could drink, and the hyenas decided not to eat us.’
I looked at him, and nearly laughed, like – you what?
‘Then, for some time we were living in a lorry, a bit like this one,’ he said. ‘But stuck inside a box on the back, with no room to sit down, and it was as hot as an oven – and the smell was worse than this.’
‘Ha!’ I laughed. ‘Come on now. Not many folk would say that about a rubbish truck smell.’
‘Maybe they haven’t smelled—’ then he stopped.
‘Smelled what?! Dead people?’ I laughed at me own joke, even though it were a bit dark, like.
But he weren’t laughing. He looked out the window. Didn’t deny it. I mean, he could have said he were just being polite about me truck or summat! I felt queasy all of a sudden. This were creepy, like. Were he saying they’d been murdered, these dead people he were travelling with? Were he the killer? Were he about to finish me off and all? Me heart started going then, nineteen to’t dozen, I tell you. Tricky thing to hijack though, a rubbish truck. I mean, you’d get spotted pretty quick, wouldn’t you? Couldn’t get up much of a speed. And this lad seemed polite, anyway, not like a killer. Maybe there weren’t actually dead people in a lorry with him – maybe he just didn’t say there weren’t. If you know what I mean.
‘We came in a boat, for the last part,’ he told me.
‘Who’s we then?’ I asked. ‘Did you come with family?’
‘With a friend,’ he said, ‘who is like my brother.’ But he didn’t tell me nowt more, and to be honest I’d heard enough. Can of worms, I’d got to thinking.
‘Well, you’re probably doing the right thing, heading to London now,’ I said, trying to sound cheery. ‘Tough to get any kind of work round here these days, so no point you hangin’ around. I’m sure you’ll settle into the Big Smoke, no worries.’
I switched on Radio 2. There were Bryan Adams on, and then Bob Dylan – ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, you know the one. And then your lad started singing along! He knew the lyrics – I mean, word for word. I had no clue they listened to that sort of thing in Africa! Thought they were more into drumming or reggae or whatever. But anyway it were quite funny – I ended up joining in, and we were there driving to town, the two of us, singing like we were a couple of mates who’d just left the pub on New Year’s Eve. And I thought: this lad is all right!
Soon enough we got to the station. ‘Here we are then,’ I said.
He were about to get out, but then he stopped and asked for me phone number. Pulled a crumpled piece of newspaper out of his pocket for me to write on.
I weren’t keen about that. I mean, I had started to warm to him a bit, but once you write stuff down and give out your details – you know? But he said he didn’t know anyone in the UK yet, and maybe we could meet again some day as he’d like to say thanks. Just so bloody polite! There were loads of reasons to say no. But then he’d come from that country with the starving kids, and he’d travelled all the way here on his tod, in some kind of grave on wheels – and the lad knew all the bloomin’ words to ‘Like a Rolling Stone’! So I scribbled it down.
As I drove off down the road I kicked meself. Not literally. But I just felt like I’d been a softie, and I started to get worried about what might happen. For all I knew he could be a criminal. I could’ve aided and abetted. But I tried to put it all out of me mind and think of it as a good deed. And that were that, for a long while anyway. The twenty-quid notes kept on coming, and I stayed king of the pool table for a month, till some young upstart came along. Assumed I’d never hear from the African lad again. And after a week or two of having strange dreams with corpses stuffed like sardines in the back of me rubbish truck, things went back to normal and I very nearly forgot all about him.
MIGRANT SHAMBLES: EU ‘HAS SURRENDERED COMPLETE CONTROL OF ITS BORDERS TO PEOPLE SMUGGLERS’
On Friday morning, Yonas went outside to collect the new deliveries and jogged on the spot for a minute, trying to pump some blood back into his toes. Beyond the fence, a pinkish sky illuminated the scattering of copper and mustard leaves among the dense bushes. Some were already forming a squidgy layer on the cracked concrete. As he looked up the track, his feet itched at the prospect of getting out. Only a few hours to go before the scoping walk.
He reached out to pick up the topmost crate of scallops, and its newspaper lining caught his eye.
TORTURED ASYLUM SEEKER FRAUDULENTLY CLAIMED £21,000 IN BENEFITS WHILE EARNING £2,000 A MONTH
£21,000? That sounded like a lot! Even £2,000 sounded like a lot. Could this story be made up? But this was the UK, and newspapers here were regulated – didn’t they have a duty to present facts? Still… He tore out the headline carefully, put it in his pocket, and lugged the crate inside.
For the rest of the morning he worked faster than usual, with jiggling feet. In anticipation of the walk he thought back to his military service days, how impatiently he’d look forward to striding out of the barracks, up that long, stony path all the way up to the Eye, a hole in the rock that was big enough to sit in, to curve your spine into its shape, smoothed by the weather and the years and countless other human forms, and rest for a while, absorbing the rippling mountainscape, free for a precious moment just by rising above it all. When the wind was easterly the Eye would emit a low wail, like a giant flute.
At noon, Aziz started caterwauling his call to prayer and pulled out the frayed carpet, marking the start of free time. While he and the other Muslims prostrated themselves, everyone else sat around and played mancala games or snoozed. Yonas leaned against the wall preparing to read his saved sheets of newspaper, but Osman’s wheezy cough sounded beside him. ‘Yonas, can you help practise my English?’
‘Sure,’ he said, swallowing his irritation. ‘Take a seat. Why don’t you start from here, the bit about the football team?’
Osman stumbled along, tracing his finger at a snail’s pace underneath the words. He was a cute kid, seventeen at most, and the only other person in the factory who showed any interest in reading, in finding out more about this country they were in, anticipating more than mere survival. Meanwhile Gebre was watching a mancala game with a vacant expression. Yonas chipped in now and then to correct Osman’s pronunciation or explain a definition, and time dawdled on. But finally prayers were over, Petros went out, and Aziz retreated to his den, from where a rhythmic snore signalled the start of his nap. Yonas told Osman to carry on reading while he went to the toilet, got up and went out, nudging Gebre on his way.
As planned, Gebre followed him. ‘Okay, let’s go!’ Yonas whispered.
But Gebre shook his head. ‘I’ve been thinking – it’s too risky. If we’re going for good on Monday, let’s just figure out a route then, on the fly.’
He had a point. But Yonas wanted so badly to get beyond the fence. ‘I think we should plan,’ he said. ‘But I’ll just go solo if you don’t want to.’
He crossed the yard, clambered over the gate and started up the hill. But then he heard footsteps. He turned
