Authors: Cathy MacPhail
Patrick thought he should have had the whole day off school. He’d seen a suicide, had a big shock. But by the afternoon, and after he had been interviewed by the police again, he was hustled out by his mother. ‘You’re much better off at school, son. You’ll only dwell on it if you stay at home,’ she said.
And anyway, this was her bingo afternoon.
Yet, he was glad to be at school. He was greeted like a hero. The main man. He enjoyed the attention, and he found the more he talked, the better he felt. All his friends, especially the boys, wanted him to give a second-by-second description of all he’d seen. And he obliged, dramatising it even more. The man falling through the air, his arms flailing, floating like a puppet.
‘Then,’ he slapped his hands together, ‘blood everywhere . . . well, you can imagine.’
Mrs Telford, their form teacher, had allowed him to talk for a while, to let him get it out of his system. Eventually, she stepped in. ‘I don’t want to hear any more talk of this terrible event. It must have been very traumatic for Patrick.’ Patrick didn’t look the least bit traumatised. By this time, he was grinning from ear to ear. Mrs Telford looked around the class. Half of them were asylum seekers. ‘We are all going to say a prayer for this poor man. We do not know what led him to such a terrible act. Nor should we judge him.’
She closed her hands and bent her head in prayer.
Mosi watched silently. She was a good teacher, Mrs Telford. She knew there were many different faiths in her class. She respected them all. Mosi didn’t pray. He had nothing to believe in any more.
He looked at Patrick Cleary. He wasn’t praying either. His head was bent, but his eyes were open. He was paler than usual. Mosi could tell that what Patrick had seen had frightened him, though he covered it up with jokes and laughing.
But there was no way Patrick had seen that man hit the ground. Yes, he had watched him fall, but at the moment of impact, he must have turned away, or closed his eyes. Covered his ears to blot out the sound.
Mosi felt weak at the memories he had. And now he did close his eyes. Tried to blot out those memories. Terrible memories. But it was impossible. No way to stop them seeping through the walls of his mind like blood.
No, Patrick Cleary had not seen that man hit the ground.
‘Did you know him, Mosi?’ asked Bliss.
Bliss. Where did she get such a name, Mosi wondered. She was in his class. Long dark hair swept her shoulders, freckles dotted across her nose. His hesitation made her ask him again. ‘Did you know him? The man who died?’
Mosi lifted his shoulders. ‘He was one of the asylum seekers. It’s a big estate, we don’t all know each other.’
She tutted. ‘I know that, Mosi. I was just asking if you knew him. I heard he was from Africa too.’
‘It’s a big continent,’ was all he said.
Bliss didn’t give up. She never did. ‘But I mean, if you did know him, that would be really traumatic for you.’
Bliss had heard Mrs Telford use the word ‘traumatic’ and wanted to use it again. Always trying to impress. Mosi liked her though. It would be hard not to like her. She was always so friendly, so talkative. Bliss, the name suited her. She’d become something of a heroine after she had arranged with her whole family and all their friends to link arms in front of her best friend Ameira’s house and stop a midnight arrest of the whole family. She and Ameira were always together. He was surprised she wasn’t beside Bliss now. Ameira’s family’s asylum application had been upheld. They were now going to be allowed to stay. Ameira gave Bliss all the credit for that. Bliss would be prime minister one day, Mosi was convinced of that. So, why couldn’t he smile back at her, answer her, talk to her?
He was afraid. Always so afraid.
‘What do you mean, Bliss, traumatic for
him
? I’m the one who saw the man fall.’
Patrick had come up behind her. Bliss hardly turned to him. ‘I don’t believe you saw anything, Patrick Cleary. You make things up all the time. I remember the story about seeing a UFO.’
‘I did see a UFO!’ Patrick insisted. ‘It was in the sky, and I didn’t know what it was. That makes it officially an unidentified flying object – a UFO. So, I did not make that up.’
Bliss rolled her eyes. She looked back at Mosi. ‘Back me up here, Mosi. Do you believe he saw that man falling?’
Mosi looked at Patrick. Patrick had smiling eyes – mischievous, he had heard Mrs Telford call them. Bright blue eyes and a shock of fiery red hair that seemed to drain his face of any colour. He was always up to something, in class or out of school. He was always telling stories. But not this time. ‘I believe him,’ he said.
‘Oh, Mosi, I thought you would know better.’ Bliss always talked to him as if they were friends.
Patrick slapped him on the back. ‘Thanks, Mosi.’
‘I don’t know what you’re asking him for. He doesn’t care about anybody except hisself.’ Cody Barr came up beside them. Cody was in their class too but never so friendly as Patrick or Bliss. He didn’t like Mosi. Didn’t like any of the asylum seekers on the estate. His older brother ran with a gang that had a reputation for causing trouble. But Cody was kept in check in school. Zero tolerance for any kind of racism, or bullying. Signs everywhere. RESPECT.
But once out of school, that didn’t matter. Not for Cody. ‘A wimp.’ He grabbed Mosi by the collar, pulled him towards him, brought his face close to his. ‘A real wimp. Know what a wimp is. Do they have that word in your language?’ His mouth curled into a sneer. Mosi was sure he must practise that sneer in front of a mirror.
Mosi jerked himself free, stepped back. He never rose to his bait. And that only made Cody angrier.
‘Scared o’ everything.’ Cody spat the words out.
Bliss was scared of nothing. She gave Cody a shove. ‘You leave him be or I’ll report you.’ She turned to Mosi. ‘If he gives you any more trouble, you let me know.’
She stomped off towards her best friend, Ameira.
Cody sniggered. ‘Oh, fine, now you’ve got a lassie to protect you. That’s what I call a
real
wimp.’
Patrick dragged Cody away. Patrick and Cody were friends, and Mosi could never understand that friendship. ‘Leave Mosi be,’ he heard Patrick say, ‘he never does anybody any harm.’ And then, though his voice was soft, he heard Cody’s next words, the words he knew he wasn’t meant to hear.
‘So, are we still on for the night, Patrick?’
Mosi’s mother looked worried when he got home that day. There was a strong police presence all over the estate. An incident van was parked almost at the entrance to his block of flats. There was a television news van there too. The spot where the man had fallen was marked out with police incident tape.
‘They will soon go,
hooyo
,’ he tried to assure her.
She shook her head. ‘The boy who saw him fall, he lives in this block of flats. Three floors above us. They will be asking questions of everyone here. In case we saw something too. The man came from our country. They will think we might know him.’
He saw her hand shake as she put down his plate of food. His father clasped her fingers. ‘It will be all right, Uma. We saw nothing. We know nothing.’
‘Did you know this man,
aabo
?’ Mosi asked him.
‘I talked to people who did. Hassan, his name was. They said he’d been worried, frightened about something, afraid . . .’
‘He was being sent back,’ his mother said.
‘I do not know. But I imagine, yes, he was afraid he was being sent back. His brother disappeared a few weeks ago. Afraid too of being sent back. It is a tragedy.’
‘They do not know why he was in that tower block,’ his mother said. ‘He lived on the other side of the estate.’
His father had an explanation. ‘There are many empty flats in that block.’ Mosi knew that was true. There had been talk of all these tower blocks being demolished and everyone moved to other parts of the city. His father went on. ‘I heard he was stowing food in one of them, so he could hide there if his application for asylum failed.’
His mother let out a long sigh. ‘Poor man, how desperate he must have been.’
Mosi still had no sympathy. Why could he not just have disappeared, the way his brother had disappeared? Why such a public death? He hated him for making his mother cry.
Mosi couldn’t take his eyes from her. Her mouth trembled. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he told her. ‘They will let us stay here. Daniel has told us that.’ Daniel was the man from the YMCA, a kind man, who had helped them since they arrived in Glasgow. He had assured them over and over that their case was almost guaranteed. It was the ‘almost’ that worried them. He wondered what his mother would do if they were told they were to be sent back. The same as the man today? She had been through so much. She was strong. She had held them all together. But like a strong coat buffeted by the winds she was coming apart at the seams.
And again, he felt only anger at the man who died. How dare he bring this to them?
Patrick watched himself on the screen. He’d never been on television before. Did he really look like that? He thought he resembled a lit match. A skinny, pale boy with a head of flaming red hair and freckles. This boy looked nervous. His lips were dry. Patrick watched him run his tongue along them. The boy nodded. ‘I saw everything,’ he was saying.
Did he really sound like that? Did he really have such a thick Scottish accent? That amazed him as he only ever thought in pure American, like the characters in all the films he watched.
‘And where were you when you saw this?’
The boy – he just couldn’t think of that boy as himself, as Patrick – the boy pointed up to the tower block. The camera followed his finger. ‘I was waiting for the lift. I was going to school.’
‘And you saw the whole thing?’
Again he nodded. Patrick remembered thinking he should be telling this story better, describing the man coming over the top of the tower block . . . the silence as he went down . . . the sound of him hitting the ground. He was usually so good at telling stories, but for some reason the right words wouldn’t come.
‘That must have been quite a shock.’
The journalist had turned to the camera then, Patrick’s moment of fame had passed. But Patrick had stopped listening anyway. He wondered if he
had
seen everything. The man had made no sound. All he had seen was a man, his arms flapping like a windmill, falling – and looking as if maybe, just maybe, he’d decided he didn’t want to do it after all.
A woman had come to the flat after school, some kind of counsellor, asking if he needed to talk about it. That had made his mother laugh. ‘He’s been talking about it all day. Can’t get him to shut up.’
The woman didn’t smile when his mum said that. His mother wasn’t taking this seriously enough. But for once, his mum was right. He didn’t need to talk to an adult. He had his friends, and they would be happy to listen till he’d talked it out.
The woman had left with a promise, a threat, his mother had called it, of coming back again.
And after she left they had sat together and watched the news, plates of egg and chips on their knees.
‘I really think I should have been in that shot with you, Patrick. As your mother, to let people see I was there to support you.’ She spoke through a mouthful of chips. ‘I mean, I know I gave them permission to film you, but I think I should have been there as well.’
Patrick had to smile at the memory of his mother trying her best to sneak into the shot behind him. She hadn’t been quick enough. The interview was over in seconds, and her fifteen minutes of fame had been snatched from her.
She stood up and took his plate from him. ‘Now, you don’t mind me going out tonight, do you?’
This was unusual. She almost never asked. She went out every night. ‘Because I don’t mind staying in, son. You have had a very distressing day. And you’re my priority.’
He’d heard his granny on the phone ordering her to stay in. ‘Don’t leave that boy on his own!’ she’d shouted. So loud she didn’t need a phone. And his mum had assured her she wouldn’t. She’d lied. His granny was away on a retreat to the convent at Carfin and wouldn’t be back till tomorrow. She’d never find out. Patrick certainly wouldn’t tell her.
‘Don’t be daft, Mum. I’ll be fine. Slasher movie on the horror channel.’ He grinned at her. His mum was more like a daft big sister really. She’d only been sixteen when he’d been born. She acted as if she was still sixteen. She didn’t need much convincing to go out anyway. This was singles night. She would have had a heart attack if he’d asked her to stay in with him.
It was the last thing he wanted anyway. He had things to do. People to meet. His mum was hardly out of the door when Cody called. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ Patrick said.
Mosi saw the interview on TV too. He watched it with his mother and father in silence.
‘The poor boy. What a terrible thing to see,’ his mother said.
After speaking to Patrick, the journalist turned to the camera. ‘This suicide has focused attention once again on what is happening here for the asylum seekers. Life is hard on this run-down estate. They have to contend with poverty, racist attacks and the fear of being deported. Although Hassan had still been waiting for a final decision on his asylum application, friends have said he was growing increasingly afraid that he would be sent back. There is an air of tension here on this grim Glasgow estate. We will have to wait to see what the repercussions of this tragic event will be.’