The Invisible Crowd

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 with a flicker of panic – but it was Gebre, after all! Yonas grinned, held up his palm for a high-five and they carried on side by side. The sun was struggling through thick swathes of cloud and the wind strengthened as they climbed. It felt so good to be moving. ‘So, we’ll get to a higher point,’ Yonas said, ‘and work out a direction, some landmarks, sketch out in our heads a rough route that seems like it’s away from main roads with foliage to hide in… We’ll travel mainly at dawn and dusk, find odd jobs, dry places to sleep, and then once we get to London—’ He stopped. Grabbed Gebre’s shoulder. Yes: footsteps again. They turned, expecting to see Petros with a snarl on his face.

‘Osman!’ Yonas laughed incredulously. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I want to come,’ the kid said. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Just for a walk. But if Aziz finds out…’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You should,’ Gebre said.

‘You can’t stop me.’ For a moment, Osman looked exactly like Yonas’s little brother Tekle, with those stubborn, pleading eyes, those puppy eyebrows.

‘Come on then!’ Yonas relented, and jabbed Gebre in the ribs. ‘Race you to the top!’ To his surprise, Gebre took off as if he’d got new batteries. Yonas pounded behind, energy streaming into his blood, laughter making him gasp for air. His feet thundered, his stiff, cold muscles came painfully to life, his arms pumped like pistons, his lungs were about to explode, his whole body was on fire, but he carried on regardless.

When they finally made it, panting, to the crest of the hill, they were struck in the face by a blast of salty wind. Blood thumped in Yonas’s temples as he let out a whoop. Gebre bent forward, hands on his knees, puffing steam into the air. Osman, wheezing, finally made it to join them. About a mile down the slope ahead, and stretching out indefinitely, was the sea.

It wasn’t bright blue or gleaming like the Red Sea, or violent and terrible like the Mediterranean. It was a soft, deep grey flecked with white foam like a scattering of goose feathers. A few birds hovered over it, frolicking in the wind, making light of its huge scale, a scale that brought back the terror… and yet, from this safe vantage point, the sight was liberating. Reaching out his arms like a champion sprinter, Yonas flung back his head and inhaled into parts of his lungs he had forgotten existed.

Gebre stood with his feet wide, hands on hips, shaking his head, a smile transforming his face. ‘It is good to be out of there,’ he said.

Yonas nodded sagely. ‘I told you so.’

‘All right, all right, you didn’t paint this view.’

‘I made this whole sea out of my saliva,’ Yonas said. ‘You should start worshipping me like I deserve.’

‘Idiot’, Gebre said, shoving him gently, then flopped down on the ground. Yonas copied, feeling almost drunk on the lightness of laughter and the weight of his body on the earth and the intense, sharp scent of damp grass.

Eventually he sat up, and leaned on his elbows. The sky to the south was blue-green, like the inside of a duck egg shell, and splashed with drifting clouds, but to the north a malevolent purple mass was forming. He closed his eyes, and let the wind pummel his cheeks. Feeling his sweat cool, he shivered, rubbed his arms and sat up straight. ‘Okay – we’re supposed to be planning a route here, and then we should head back,’ he said, and began to scan the inland horizon. There was no sign of a town; the only buildings visible were an industrial-looking complex and some clusters of houses in the distance. Yonas figured if they followed the coastline southwards for a while they would be able to get quite a long way unnoticed, before working out a way to call Auntie. Gebre was still lying down with his eyes closed and a serene look on his face. Yonas cast around for Osman. He looked behind, and either side – and then spotted him, running down the hill ahead, at full pelt towards the sea.

He grabbed Gebre’s arm. ‘Look! Osman – he’s running off!’

Gebre jerked upright, then they both scrambled to their feet. ‘Osmaaaaan!’

‘He can’t hear. But they might hear us at the factory if we yell any more. We’ll never catch him and get back on time…’

‘Donkoro. I knew something like this would happen,’ Gebre groaned. ‘We shouldn’t have let him come.’

‘Maybe he’s got the right idea,’ Yonas said. ‘Come on, let’s go too – screw it!’

‘We can’t. We agreed two weeks. And my photo’s still in there.’

‘What? The one of your parents? Why didn’t you bring it?’

‘It’s all I’ve got left. I have to get it.’

Yonas reached into his pocket and ran his finger over the crown of his wooden rooster. ‘It’s just a piece of paper,’ he protested weakly. ‘And if we go back without Osman, Aziz will go nuts…’

‘We’ll get back in time – he won’t know we left. And Osman will turn around any minute. Come on.’

Gebre set off. Osman’s figure was already just a speck on the horizon. Yonas followed.

When they slipped into the factory again, there were a few raised eyebrows among the other workers but nobody said anything. Aziz re-emerged from his nap, dinner preparation started as normal, and nobody seemed to notice anyone was missing. But then Rashid came up behind Yonas. ‘Where’s Osman?’ he whispered. Yonas mimed zipping his mouth.

It was only a few minutes before Aziz clocked his absence. ‘Osman!’ he bellowed. He looked around and turned on Rashid. ‘Where’s the boy?’ Rashid shrugged, and Aziz spat at his feet. ‘Fetch him now. I need my laundry.’

‘Sir – I think he’s on the toilet,’ Yonas improvised. ‘I’ll check and get your laundry.’ He went outside, ran around the side of the building and peered up the track. No sign. It was starting to rain. Of course Osman wasn’t coming back. Yonas felt a burn of envy. If he’d been stronger-willed, less sentimental, and said he was going to leave regardless, maybe Gebre would have followed. His friend’s photo, a small sepia one of his parents on their wedding day, was about to disintegrate anyway – it’d got all damp and bent in its ripped plastic wallet so that you could barely make out their faces. Yonas had to stop himself kicking the bins in frustration. He walked back inside. ‘The laundry is still wet,’ he said to Aziz. ‘I couldn’t see him out there.’

Aziz pursed his lips, and looked around. ‘If he is not back soon, there will be trouble. If anyone knows anything, they need to tell me. Right now.’

They all feigned concentration on their tasks.

‘Nobody?’ Aziz’s tone was cajoling. Then he slammed his hand down and roared, ‘ENOUGH. Stop what you are doing, all of you. Look at me.’

They all looked. Aziz pivoted his head like an owl, meeting every set of eyes in turn. Fatally, Rashid scratched an itch.

‘You,’ Aziz barked, and grabbed him by the hair. ‘Where – is – Osman?’

‘I don’t know. I think… he might have gone for a walk,’ Rashid croaked.

‘A walk? Where? When?’

‘Not long… I am not sure, I did not see… I know nothing.’

‘You obviously do know something, dog breath.’

Yonas nearly laughed, despite the situation; that was a new one.

‘No, not me, sir.’

‘Who is going to tell me, then?’ Aziz said, looking around.

There was no response.

‘Right, Petros. Go and hunt for him. If you do not find him in fifteen minutes I will tell Blackjack to get his men on the case.’

Petros nodded and went out, while Aziz stayed, glaring, as if he could shoot truth-forcing rays at them from his pupils.

After a while, Petros returned, shaking his head, which prompted Aziz to go into his den and make a phone call to Blackjack in such a loud, portentous voice that Yonas reckoned it was fake, but couldn’t be sure. They ate dinner in silence. Cleared up in silence. It started to rain. Yonas wondered if Osman had found a town by now, a friendly English person to talk to, a bed to sleep in. But rain was now battering the windows. He was more likely to be shivering under a tree. He’d survive though, wouldn’t he? If anyone from here deserved to, it was that kid.

But just as they were about to roll out their sleeping mats, the door squeaked open, and there he was. What are you doing? Yonas wanted to shout. Turn around, run away! But Osman stood still. His wet hair glistened and his eyes were black mirrors. It might have been a trick of light and water, but he seemed to be standing in an aura, like an icon.

‘Osman,’ Aziz said, his voice all smug, the purr of a cat dangling a mouse.

‘I… I am sorry, sir, I just wanted to have a walk, to get exercise, I got lost…’

‘You know the rules, Osman.’

‘But sir, I just went out because it was free time – I was always going to come back…’

‘Come here.’

Osman walked forward, then stopped a couple of metres in front of Aziz, looking down at his shoes. Rainwater dripped around his feet. Yonas saw Aziz’s arm tense up, ready to swing, but then he seemed to get an idea.

‘Please,’ Osman said, hopefully.

Aziz bent down to pick up a metal bucket, grasped it with both hands, and slammed it down hard, on each of Osman’s feet, so that he yelped with pain, crouched, then fell heavily.

‘That will teach you to go walking,’ Aziz said. ‘Now, you four,’ he said, pointing, ‘pick Osman up and carry him outside so he can think about what he’s done. Everyone else, stay where you are. Samuel, bring that rope. Tie up his ankles, then string them to the tree, from that fat branch.’

Yonas screwed up his eyes. Rashid had told him just the other night how Aziz and Petros had threatened to string him upside down once, because he’d demanded to know when his debt would be paid off. Yonas had seen the technique used in prison; when they did it to Abraham, another political prisoner, it made all the veins explode in his eyes and forehead, turning him into a bloodthirsty monster. More memories bubbled up. Being whipped like an ox while lugging stones in the heat; his head being pushed into a bucket of water until he saw sparkles and was sure he was drowning; and, the worst, the helicopter position…

‘I am sorry, I will never do it again, please, I am sorry,’ Osman was sobbing, even as the rope was being tied, even as his thrashing body was left to swing from the branch like a pendulum.

Aziz barked to the rest of them to get to bed, and walked implacably towards his den, as if they’d all just wish each other a pleasant good night and settle down.

‘You’re not just going to leave him there?’ Yonas said. He dumped his sleeping mat and ran towards Aziz, grabbing his arm. ‘Look at him, he’s only a kid, he’s been punished enough – you’ve probably broken all his toes!’

‘Get. Off. Me.’ Aziz snarled the words, wrenching away. Then he plunged his hand down into his shirt, fumbled awkwardly for a minute somewhere above his gut, his face reddening with the effort, until he pulled out a pistol, black and shining. So, it did exist. He lifted it slowly, and advanced a step towards Yonas. ‘You do as you’re ordered,’ he said. ‘I’m the one who decides punishments around here.’

Yonas stayed still a moment, feeling oddly calm. This was it, one way or another – there was no way back now. No way he could live any longer under this bastard’s orders. Torture was the main reason he’d fled all the way here – it wasn’t supposed to happen in the UK! And he wouldn’t take it. If Aziz didn’t shoot him first, he would be out of this place, by tomorrow morning at the latest… It occurred to him that he had never stood so close to Aziz for so long before. He took in the saggy eyelids, the tousled eyebrows, the beige, blotchy skin, the browning teeth. This was a man who was disillusioned with life, who seemed to have no family and no friends, who lived in shoddy enough dwellings here himself, and whose sole aim seemed to be to wield the little power he’d been given. Yes, he was capable of shooting. But he probably didn’t want to. None of the other workers were saying a word in Yonas’s defence, but he could feel them all, silently rooting for him. Yonas turned away from Aziz, and started to walk back towards his sleeping mat, expecting any second the sound of a gunshot, searing pain. None came. But instead he heard another strangled sob from Osman. Fury bubbled up, and he turned back to Aziz again. ‘So string me up there instead,’ he challenged in an unnaturally loud voice. He felt everyone else go still, and wondered what the hell he was doing.

Aziz looked confused for a second, then laughed snidely, took a handkerchief from his pocket and began, ostentatiously, to polish the muzzle of the pistol. ‘Since you asked so nicely, I will string you up, as well, next to Osman. . . if you say one more word. I’m giving you a chance, here. A last chance. If you’ve got any sense you’ll shut your mouth, and get to bed.’ He didn’t sound entirely convincing though – a bit like a cross parent who has just refused to tell another story but is now conceding. Yonas told himself to stand his ground a few moments longer. Aziz put the handkerchief away, and then, remarkably, his shoulders seemed to sag as he tucked the gun back into its pouch and looked away. ‘Right, Petros,’ Aziz said, ‘give the kid five more minutes, then if he apologizes – like he means it – he can come down.’ With that, he went into his den and slammed the door.

A couple of the others came over and patted Yonas on the back, but he was still seething at their collective gutlessness. ‘Come on, Petros,’ he said, ‘make it a quick five minutes’, and was met by an unsurprising glare. But about two minutes later, Petros summoned a few of them outside to support Osman’s body while he cut the rope, then slouched off.

They carried Osman inside, laid him down gently on his mat and gathered around. He seemed to be unconscious. Was he dead? His eyes were bright red, devilish, his face greyish-purple and blotchy, his skin cold to the touch. Salim grabbed his wrist, held an ear to his chest. ‘Yes – he’s got a pulse!’ he said. ‘Osman?’

But Osman didn’t utter a sound. They all began tenderly stripping him, and putting on dry clothes. His feet were swollen and bloodied, and a couple of his toes pointed in odd directions. Yonas reached out to try to straighten them, which must have been agony, but Osman barely reacted. After a few minutes he coughed, as if he were coming to, but he still didn’t seem to be hearing anything they were saying, just closed his freakish eyes and groaned a little.

‘You will be okay,’ Yonas told him. ‘A friend of mine came through the same thing.’ Tenderly, they wrapped him in blankets.

‘We can keep an eye on him during the night,’ Yonas offered, and he and Gebre put their mats down either side of him, and lay down, both facing him, like anxious new parents caring for a baby. Yonas began humming a lullaby his mother used to sing. It didn’t seem to have any effect on Osman, but made Yonas feel a bit calmer. Gradually, the skin of Osman’s palms warmed, and eventually he took a long breath, like a sigh, that turned into a husky, open-mouthed semi-snore.

A while later, when it sounded like most of the others were asleep, Yonas leaned across and whispered, ‘Gebre, that was the last straw. We’re out of here, tomorrow morning. I’ve got an idea. Involving rubbish. It might be genius. You just need to follow me outside when I say, okay?’

Gebre was silent. He wasn’t asleep though – Yonas could see his eyes glinting in the moonlight.

Chapter 5: Quentin

BARE-FACED CHEEK: FURY AS GERMAN NUDISTS ARE ORDERED TO COVER UP AFTER A MIGRANT SHELTER ARRIVES NEAR THEIR LAKE

Long black, please, extra shot, extra hot, no sugar.

So, this Mr Kelati of yours. Well. I wouldn’t say I know him exactly, but what I do know is that he managed to sneak into this country and turn my life into a train wreck. Talking of trains, that’s where I first came across him, joyriding – though he didn’t exactly look joyous. Look, I’m sure he’s had a tough time of it. I don’t doubt that. But so do thousands of others. My point is that asylum seekers should go through the proper processes if they want to live here, not sneak in illegally and then use public transport without paying and work tax-free and do God knows what else. Otherwise we can’t know who genuinely deserves protection under the Refugee Convention. Which is very unfair to all the genuine refugees. As well as to British people. That’s my opinion. I know, I know: you don’t want my opinion, you want the story.

So, I was with my campaign manager, Alice, en route back to London from Grimsby, where I was Conservative candidate. It was a while before D-day, but you need to start canvassing early: a fact Nina, my wife, struggled to understand. I know it’s not easy looking after a child by yourself, but I would usually only go off for a few days at a time, which lots of mothers manage fine, and Nina is as capable as anyone – except her anxiety was taking her totally off piste. She’d started claiming she couldn’t cope and I didn’t care enough and I was never around and our abysmal parenting was going to ruin Clara’s life. Which was baloney, but she wouldn’t listen. I told her we could pay for some extra childcare if we had to, and she should try going back to her CBT therapist, but she bit my head off. I said she should at least spend more time on her painting, which she says is her best therapy; the problem is she gets herself into a catch-22 situation whereby she needs to go to the studio but is too stressed out to leave the house, and blames it on housework and childcare, even on the days Clara is in nursery.

I’ve always tried to be patient, but it’s hard if you’re constantly being deluged with someone else’s worries or pestered for reassurance or blamed, especially when you’ve got a lot going on yourself. Not to mention the fact that, after I accepted the candidacy, Nina decided she actively disliked all party politics and refused to speak about my work at home. Point-blank! So I was expected to gag myself against any mention of the work I was doing at the most important point in my entire career, but constantly tell Nina not to worry about ridiculous things in a patient voice that implied she wasn’t in fact being ridiculous? It didn’t exactly motivate me to rush back home when I had a constituency to convince, put it that way.

But I digress. That day, Alice and I were on our way back to London, as I say, and I had a vile hangover, but Alice had scheduled a review discussion en route. So I bought myself a long black at the station, and once we were on the train I pulled out my notebook. We talked about how the trip had gone, how the campaign had progressed, what had worked well or less well, and how we might adapt our approach, and, inevitably, we got onto immigration.

It had never been a policy priority for me personally before, not really, but this phase of the campaign had made me realize I just had to take it seriously and focus on it if I wanted to engage the constituents. It was a huge deal for them. Their biggest worry. People were already concerned about all the Eastern Europeans in the mix offering labour for peanuts, and what with illegal immigration stepping up too and asylum seekers swarming in, they felt like they were being invaded. And I needed to up the ante – my UKIP counterpart was wielding all kinds of extreme language, and he was becoming far more popular than anyone had predicted.

Alice and I had always seen eye to eye on pretty much everything. But that morning she said that, in her view, a lot of the headlines I was regularly quoting were more media hype than fact and I should ‘maybe chill out a bit’. I told her she risked being naïve, and while I appreciated her playing devil’s advocate, I ultimately needed her to endorse the approach I was taking, and in fact strengthen it, and that what I was saying was actually more considered and moderate than it necessarily needed to be to make the point. Basically, genuine refugees are fine, but illegal immigration and bogus asylum seekers are major problems that have got to be tackled. She apologized then, and stroked my knee, which I quickly moved away, beginning to be irritated. (Alice is an unusually tactile person, but I’d told her several times before that physical contact like that between us in public was inappropriate. She’s not at all unattractive, so I knew people would jump to conclusions.) I took a break and made my way along the corridor to find a Gents.

I admit I did then start to wonder whether Alice was partly right, and whether I could moderate my tone a bit, if not my fundamental stance. I mean, the evidence of the impact of illegal immigration wasn’t yet clear – how could it be, if these people are under the radar? – though the constituents were convinced. But I had to take a line. Voters like a strong line. I just wished Nina would let me run this kind of issue by her. I’ve always been open to talking about her work, about the arts scene, all that. My head was pounding, and I was reprimanding myself for letting Alice persuade me into that last bottle of wine the night before, wishing I’d got the evening train home so I could have read Clara a bedtime story and played a bit of piano – and that was when I saw him. Your Mr Kelati. Standing in the toilet doorway talking with the conductor.

It didn’t look friendly, so I intuited pretty quickly what was going on. I took a few steps closer to try to hear what they were saying; having just come from that conversation with Alice I was particularly intrigued to see someone like him in the flesh, caught in the act. He looked like a tramp, quite frankly, smelled like one too, and had a heavy African accent. As I was trying to overhear, it occurred to me to snap a photo of the two of them, thinking I might blog about it as part of the public conversation. I still couldn’t quite make out the words, but then I saw him wince and clutch his stomach, which looked entirely fake to me, and I managed to capture it in another shot, but the conductor seemed to be developing a sympathetic look on his face. And then, to my disbelief, he patted the guy on the shoulder and began to turn away, with no ticket or anything being handed over! So I snapped once more, then cleared my throat and said, ‘Excuse me, but as a paying customer I’d like to check that appropriate action is being taken if people are travelling without tickets.’