This Is Where I Am (13 page)

‘Cold? I mean to be respectful. Polite.’

My indignation is ignored. She continues like I am invisible. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I remain in my other world.

‘Closed off, self-contained. You get like that, don’t you?’ With the white rim of her varnished thumb, she picks dirt from another nail. ‘My husband died ten months ago. But he was ill for years. A wasting disease. Atrophying his body, bit by painful bit, while his mind remained intact. Years and years of dying from the outside in. There’s days still when I just want to punch the world, you know? Just kick the –’ She pulls her hands across bent-up knees. ‘How long since you lost your wife?’

I have a thickening of saliva; I do not possess all of Deborah’s words, but we share language and she must know, she must know that she is smashing me inwards, to the closed-off cold where I will not go.

But I did. I let it visit me today and it was beautiful. Although it rests on me now like these stones. I make a decision. Numbers drop into my sparkling breath-cloud. One year, two months and eleven days. But I cannot say them out loud, they come as a coughing
Longer
. By the loch, my daughter wheels with the shrieking birds. She has her mother’s grace. Her face is light, she holds the rod out to the water, laughing. I take another gulp of water-air. It is good. Here is good.

‘I
did
want your help with Rebecca. But then I thought I could not lose her too. She will be ready when she is ready. Like we all are.’

It was remembering that young boy from the camp. The way his face rushed away from me, fast and dragging all at once. How lost he looked, and how my daughter’s face would look if I deposited her with strangers.

‘So what did you tell the Education Department?’

‘I say I make a mistake with her birth year. That she is not yet four.’ I shrug. ‘It is the only time I have found a lack of papers advantageous.’

Debs laughs. I like that she recognises my joke.

‘You should laugh more like that. Big laughing.’

‘You forget, though, don’t you? How to laugh.’

I shake my head. ‘You must not. My grandfather told me: Be glad for the life God has given you. If he gives you a different life from that which you already had, be grateful for that also. To carry bitterness will drag you down like stones in your net.’

‘I take it he was a fisherman too?’

‘He was.’

The very, very best. An elder and a philosopher as well. He always spoke the truth. I cannot carry rocks. I must leave them where they fall or I will not be free to live the life my daughter needs. Rebecca is tottering on the edge of the loch again. She is trying to fish for something on a boulder, a slick strip of green. ‘Will you come away from there!’ I shout.

‘I’ll get her.’ Debs slides down, hurries over to my daughter. I hear her say, ‘What is it you’re after? Is it that? The pretty tree?’

Next thing, she is shrugging off her long coat, is scrambling on to the boulders. Sleek heads rising from the lapping water, she steps on one, then the next, until she is close to her prize. The thing bounces up against the rock, is drawn back by the water. It is merely a severed branch; a wand of bushy spikes. ‘Is only leaves,’ I call. Debs turns her head towards me, but not her body. Caught off balance, she slips. Her mouth a perfect O as she falls, splashing into the shallows of the loch. Rebecca screams. And screams again. I run to her, get there just as Debs’s head emerges from the water.

Rebecca is hysterical. I cannot stop the scream.

‘It’s OK, baby. Look, Debs is fine.’

‘Hey, Rebecca! REBECCA!’ Debs bawls. ‘Hey, look at silly me!’

Deliberately, Debs throws herself backwards into the water, then jumps like a frantic star. ‘Wheee! Look at silly Debs in the water. Isn’t that funny? Wheee!’

She splashes water at us, tiny droplets striking our skin. ‘Oh, oh, oh . . . nooo. Here I go again!’

Once more, she flops backwards into the icy loch. Utterly sodden, pushing through water to grab the stupid green weed that’s draped over the rock. Her saturated jumper clings to her breasts. Her whole body shivering. ‘Ta dah!’ she jumps. ‘Look what I got! But you can only get it if you give me a lovely big smile.’ Her teeth chatter with the cold, but she doesn’t leave the water until Rebecca’s laughter replaces her tears.

‘Yay! That’s better.’ Debs waves the branch behind her like a flag, comes out in a flurry of running and spray. I place my jacket round her shoulders.

‘There’s your lovely ribbon, madam.’  With a flourish, she presents the glossy weed to Rebecca. In return, Rebecca hugs her.

‘So you want to get all squishy-wishy wet too, do you, missy?’

To me she whispers, ‘I can’t feel my toes.’

I untangle Rebecca’s arms from Debs’s waist. ‘Why don’t we fetch Debs’s coat and all get into the car? Then we can have our pic-i-nic!’

‘Pic-i-nic!’ whoops Debs. Her skin is sheened pale blue. ‘Hot coffee! Quick!’

I lift my laughing daughter in my arms. I am buoyant with the swell of water-tipped air and a rising hunger. Today is a good day. One that I will keep.

7. April

The Tenement House

Adequate housing is at a premium in any city, but a distinctive benefit of the Industrial Revolution sweeping 19th-century Scotland was the growth of the unique tenement apartment block, as city fathers sought to house the rapidly swelling population. Built in red or honey sandstone, tenements – still hugely popular today – are three or four floors high, with two or three flats per ‘landing’, providing homes for a variety of families while minimising land use.

Run by the National Trust for Scotland, the Tenement House is a wonderful example of city living at the turn of the 20th century. With a bedroom, parlour, kitchen and bathroom all opening off a central hallway, it’s the home of an ordinary Glaswegian – and that’s what makes it so special. Miss Toward, who moved there in 1911, made few changes to the décor and contents over the years. Lit by gas lamps, furnished with late-Victorian furniture, and decorated with original fabrics and paint, the Tenement House is a treasure trove of social history. Step inside and enter another world – you may find it’s not so different from your own!

Please note, an entry fee applies. Concessions are available.

*

There’s a high, black-lead grate with white washing strung across. On the scrubbed-wood table lie baking bowls, worn spoons and a set of creamy scales. For all the high ceilings and long windows, it’s very dark. Faint, fuzzy gaslight hisses, wavers nauseous yellow over antimacassars and Abdi’s hand touching them and a loudly ticking clock. We glide on brown linoleum, library-quiet, and I recognise the dark-green woodwork from my own grandma’s house, the metal doorplates where sticky fingers must be placed, on pain of . . . well, pain. Administered via a reedy switch which Grandma kept on a nail in the hall. I don’t think I ever saw her use it; I don’t imagine her paper-thin fingers would have had the strength, but it hung there, laden with omniscient potential, and my cousins and sister and I would shuffle by, awestruck. Each secretly hoping that one of the others would incur Grandma’s wrath and we could
see
the switch in action. But we never did.

There’s the hall press, into which coats and boxes, a carpet beater and – latterly – a lightweight Hoover were crammed. At my grandma’s, I mean. The one in the Tenement House has artfully arranged shelves of vintage linen. My cousin Jessie and I would nestle into the press with an old torch and the
Jackie
magazine, hiding from Gill and the boys. Jessie was my best, best friend, and I haven’t seen her for . . . I loosen the belt of my coat . . . ten years, it must be. Apart from the funeral, of course. Everyone came to the funeral, but I saw none of them in my faint fuzzy gaslit gaze. You know when you hold in needing the toilet for so long that your kidneys ache? You’re jittery-sick and think your eyes are swimming in toxic pee? That’s the only way I can describe the product of my deeply compressed rage.

Why come now, when I needed you then?

There was no line-up afterwards, no purvey, because I knew that was precisely what I’d spit at them all. Fine, pay Callum all the ‘respects’ you like, but don’t come anywhere near me with that word, because I’ll shove it up your arse. Maybe I did used to swear more than I think. Maybe I
do
. I experience a sudden, horrible thrill of self-realisation. What if I’m one of those women who shouts at bins, waves my fist and screeches profanities at passing dog-walkers and cars –
and I don’t even know I’m doing it
? Who would tell me if I did, if I walked around outside without my skirt on, just in my jumper and my slippers and my vast crazy hair?

I remove my coat altogether: it’s very warm inside the Tenement House. Abdi appears transfixed by the piano in the parlour. He’s reading the sheet-music that he cannot possibly read. Or maybe he can, maybe he was a concert pianist in Somalia as well as a teacher and a fisherman. What would I know? I stop traffic in my pants. Ach no. I consider the reality of where I live. My street has a very (
very
) active Neighbourhood Watch. I’m sure some discreet phone call would have been made to the authorities by now. My secret’s safe.

Abdi strokes the rosewood lid, lights up this mustardy room with his smile. ‘You can play?’

‘No.’ I shake my head, not clear on whether he’s asking me or asking permission.

No doubt the curtains were twitching this lunchtime, when Naomi from across the road arrived at my door. Since Callum’s death, I
never
receive guests.

‘Deborah. Hi. Have you got a minute?’

‘Em . . .’

I already had my coat on to come here. ‘Sure, come in.’

‘No. No, I won’t stop. Duncan’s just away to fetch the car.’

Our street’s hopeless for getting parked, as I’m rediscovering for myself. You can trawl for that elusive space for ever, crawling up our road, down the next, until you find yourself several squeezed-in streets away and you abandon both car and hope on the double yellows. Still, I think it’s been a good decision. Buying a car, I mean. Just a wee hatchback for getting to the shops. And I thought we . . . well, the Hill House in Helensburgh’s lovely. Then there’s Edinburgh Castle. Or Stirling. Plus, car hire’s extortionate when you add in the insurance, the damage waiver. Absurd excesses. Their gearbox was clearly faulty.

Naomi seemed edgy, her delicate kitten-heels kittenish on my step. ‘Look, I really need to talk to you. How about this evening? Could you call in after eight? I’d come over, but I can’t leave the kids and Duncan’s out . . . We’ve only the nine-to-five nanny at the moment . . .’

‘Yes . . . I guess so.’

Was she going to tell me why? Naomi’s not a committee type of woman – or churchy, I don’t think. I once accepted Mrs Gilfillan’s invite for drinks and found I was spending the evening – along with a squad of Women’s Guilders – making wedding fudge for the local minister’s daughter. Yes,
fudge
, not favours. All wrapped in greasepaper and coloured tulle. As far as I know, favours represent fertility, so I’m not quite sure what fudge meant. But it was a salutary lesson to always check.

‘Is everything OK?’

‘Not really.’ Naomi was continually surveying the street as she spoke. I imagined she would do that at parties too; scan the room as you tried to engage her attention with witty banter. But I hadn’t
asked
her to come and chat.

‘Bugger. That’s him back already.’ We both watched Duncan creeping his Jag through the narrow strait left by the 4×4s and jazzy little sports cars parked either side of our road. ‘Don’t say anything to him, OK?’

I doubt Duncan and I had exchanged more than
Merry Christmas
or
Nice day
,
isn’t it?
in fifteen years.

‘OK, I won’t. About what?’

‘Rula,’ she whispered. ‘See you later, yes? Got to go – lunch at Rogano.’ And she was gone, in a puff of citrusy perfume and camel coat.

Poor, lost Rula. I don’t know how Naomi thinks I can help. Either someone reported her to the authorities – and you’d be surprised how many anonymous do-gooders
do
– or she was already in the system and her claim had been refused.
Your application for asylum has been declined
. . .:

Heads or tails

Stay or go

Life or death

One thing I know since volunteering is, the moment you get that letter, your ship begins to sink, tilting you slowly, inexorably down. And, as the sea waits blankly to receive you, the powers-that-be nudge you further on your way. They withdraw your meagre benefits, take away your accommodation. Only when you’ve been made destitute and are literally sleeping on the streets will they consider letting you apply for emergency support. And all the time, the threat of detention hangs above your head. Then, subtly cruel to the very end, they posit the tempting notion of your ‘voluntary return’.
If you are interested in finding out more about help returning to your home country
. . .

The faux-chatty brightness makes me think of the gleaming posters Callum and I would be faced with at hospital:
How to Manage Your Pain!
set alongside cartoon graphics and amusing speech bubbles; the physio exhorting us to try relaxation tapes and,
if all else fails, Mr and Mrs Maxwell, you know, it really helps the endorphins if you can have a good laugh
.