Gazza looked towards the bar and noticed David and Dick watching him.
“Oh, oh!” said Dick looking away quickly and then disappearing behind the bar to get the rest of the drinks.
“Oh shite!” exclaimed David turning away and lifting his glass to his mouth.
Gazza gave the machine one last kick before staggering across the floor to the bar. He put an arm on David’s shoulder and spun him around to face him.
“Talking about ME were ya?” Gazza shouted into David’s face while rising on his toes and glaring menacingly.
There was a pause. Everyone in the bar stopped what they were doing and looked at Gazza in morbid fascination as if watching an accident that everyone knew was about to happen.
“No, er, just saying how Dick should get rid of that rip-off one-armed bandit.” David’s voice sounded a little nervous as he nodded towards the slot machine.
Gazza smiled a crocodile smile.
“Chill man out, I’m only messing with ya!” Gazza shouted to the relief of everyone in the bar who now continued what they were doing.
“Davy, my man!” Gazza exclaimed loudly for the whole bar to hear again as he put a friendly arm around David’s shoulder and pulling him close, he spoke quietly into his ear.
“So, it’s all set. I need you to drive for me on that job tomorrow. Don’t mention it to the others, don’t want Reggie finding out, you know how paranoid he gets when I go out for a bit of fun on my own.”
“Just the two of us? I dunno, Gazza. You know how he is.” David replied a little nervously.
“Reggie won’t know. He’s away on ‘business’ and don’t get back ‘til the day after tomorrow and by then, job’s done. Besides, you said you need the money, right? You only gotta do the wheels. Mark got me tooled up an’ everything else is sorted. As I said there’s fifty grand in this and half is yours. I need to have a crack at this job for myself, prove to Reggie I’m up to it. It’s there for the taking. Rude not to, right?”
David nodded his reluctant agreement with a half-smile and raised his glass to his lips.
“So that’s sorted.” Gazza playfully slapped him twice on the cheek. “You just remember to pick me up at 10 o’ clock sharp, right?”
“Come on you Spurs!”3 Gazza roared as the big screen TV replayed a slow-motion goal.
♦ ♦ ♦
A large barge was sounding its horn as it passed under Kessock bridge on its way out to the North Sea. David gave a deep sigh as he finished the last of the whisky in his glass. It was the end of another meaningless day.
2. A Munro is any mountain in Scotland with a height over 3,000 feet.
3. Spurs short form of Tottenham Hotspur.
Jamal Al Jamal
Inverness, Scotland
Ms. Lake, a Scottish social worker from Edinburgh, a pretty, young blond lady in her late twenties in a trouser suit and fancy reading glasses is holding a silver iPad as she sits in the armchair opposite Mr. and Mrs. Bennett who are seated on the couch in their living room in Inverness. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett had both had professional careers. Mr. Bennett was a fit and active fifty-eight-year-old and had worked most of his life as a manager for local Scottish councils until two years ago when he had been offered and accepted a modest early retirement package due to job cuts. Since then he had been involved with many local charities and good causes and could often be seen taking part in local charity fun-runs. Mrs. Bennett was fifty-seven, an attractive, smart lady who had been a teacher at the local primary school for thirty-two years until she too took early retirement last year. She had spent much of the first year of her retirement tending to her immaculate flower garden. The Bennetts were active and social people and, as their two children had long grown up and moved away to Glasgow to university, they had decided together that they wanted to do something useful with their time. They had seen a BBC documentary early last year about the hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea in dinghies to reach the Greek islands and the unaccompanied children among them and thought it would be a good idea to see if they could help in some way. They had contacted the local social services department eighteen months ago to find out more about the possibility of fostering one of the unaccompanied children. The social service office had put them in touch with Ms. Lake who was in charge of dealing with the children that the UK government had taken from the migrant camp in Calais, France as it was being closed by the French authorities. The couple were rapidly assessed, and Jamal al Jamal was sent to them two months later.
Ms. Lake made a few more ticks in the boxes in the form on the iPad as Mrs. Bennett eyed each Mr. Bennet nervously. Mr. Bennet took Mrs. Bennett’s hand reassuringly. The clock on the mantelpiece was ticking much louder than usual until Ms. Lake finally broke the silence.
“So, everything seems to be in order.” Said Ms. Lake matter-of-factly.
Mrs. Bennett smiled a relieved smile.
“Yes, you have done very well with Jamal.” Ms. Lake confirmed with a formal smile.
“Now, you know that Jamal will turn eighteen in November and therefore as a URM, erm, Unaccompanied Refugee Minor in foster care we will be seeking to re-house him in suitable housing for YP’s, er, that is, Young People.” Continued Ms. Lake.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet silently nodded their understanding.
“Now, you said he spends ‘a lot of his time in his room’?” Ms. Lake probed quoting from the notes she had made of their meeting on her iPad.
“Yes, that’s right.” Mrs. Bennett replied emphatically. “We have a high-speed internet service and he spends quite a lot of his time on his laptop computer.”
“Hardly goes out at all.” Mr. Bennett added helpfully.
“I see.” Said Ms. Lake. “Would you characterize him as an introvert, perhaps?”
“Well, I don’t know if I would say . . . ” Started Mrs. Bennett.
Suddenly the living room door opened and in walked Jamal.
Jamal is a young, dark-skinned, Arabic looking man who appears to be in his mid-twenties. He was born the only son to Palestinian parents in the Yarmouk United Nations refugee camp in Syria. When the camp was attacked by the Islamic State in 2015 his father, fearing for his safety, had given him some money and sent him to Europe. He had made his way to the west coast of Turkey and then to the Greek island of Lesbos, on an over-crowded boat with two hundred other migrants in the Spring of 2015. The Greek authorities had transferred him to a refugee camp on the mainland in Thessaloniki where he stayed for a week before leaving with a group of other young men and making his way across Europe until he had finally ended up at the unofficial so-called ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais, France. Here he had tried unsuccessfully several times to hide in lorries bound for the UK but was always discovered and ejected by the immigration authorities. He was found in the camp by British social services as the unofficial camp was being closed by the French government. He
