Refugee Boy (11 page)

On Friday when he arrived home Mrs Fitzgerald opened the door as always, but Alem could sense that something was not right. She smiled as she said ‘Hello’ but it wasn’t the warm, maternal smile that usually greeted him. Alem wanted to get straight down to it.

‘What is the problem, Mrs Fitzgerald?’ he asked.

‘Mariam from the Refugee Council is here,’ she said, pointing to the living room. ‘She needs to speak to you.’

Alem entered the room to find Mr Fitzgerald sitting quietly and Mariam drinking tea and eating biscuits.

Mariam stood up. ‘Hello, Alem,’ she said, smiling.

Alem would not risk smiling, he was aware that what was coming next might not be anything to smile about.

Mrs Fitzgerald entered the room and they all sat down.

‘Don’t worry,’ Mariam said, ‘we have a problem but we think we can overcome it.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Alem asked, his eyes compelling her to get to the point.

‘We received a letter from Croydon.’

‘Who’s Croydon?’ Alem asked.

‘Croydon is not a person, it’s a district. Do you remember when we went for that horrible screening?’

‘Yes,’ Alem nodded.

‘Well the letter has come from there. They deal with “in country” applications for asylum.’

‘What does “in country” mean?’ Alem was interrupting her flow but he wanted to make sure that he understood everything that was said.

‘An “in country” application is made by someone who applies for asylum when they are already in the country. The other type is a “port application”, that is when someone applies at an airport or a seaport or any kind of entry point. Their applications are taken
up by immigration control. Anyway, unfortunately, the Home Office at Croydon has refused your asylum request.’

‘What does that mean?’ Alem asked, looking around the room as if to invite anyone to answer.

‘It means that for some reason they are not happy with your application,’ Mariam replied, ‘but there is still hope. We can appeal. It will mean, though, that your case will be heard in a small courtroom, with a judge.’

Alem had lots of questions to ask and he couldn’t ask them quickly enough.

Alem: Were you expecting this?

Mariam: No, it doesn’t happen that often with people of your age.

Alem: Who is this judge?

Mariam: We don’t know yet. Some are less reasonable than others. We just don’t know. And actually, Alem, they’re called
adjudicators
. Same thing really.

Alem: Will they ask me lots of questions?

Mariam: They probably will, but you mustn’t let that worry you. We will talk to you more about that later.

Alem: Will I be in the courtroom on my own?

Mariam: No, we will get an immigration solicitor to represent you.

Alem: Can Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald be there?

Mariam: Of course they can.

Alem: Will there be any soldiers there?

Mariam: No way.

Alem: Can they send me back to the war?

Mariam: We think that’s very unlikely, but they can.

Alem: Can they send me to jail?

Mariam: We used to think that was impossible, but look.

She handed him a folder that he opened. It contained a wad of newspaper cuttings.

‘Those are just from some of today’s papers,’ Mariam said, leaning back in her seat. ‘Read them.’

Alem glanced at the cuttings. The headlines jumped out at him one after the other: ‘Government to clamp down on asylum seekers’, ‘Gypsies, tramps and thieves’, ‘Refugee beggars flood London streets’, ‘Government plan to build new detention centre for “bogus” refugees’, ‘Opposition party propose prison ship for asylum seekers’, ‘57 asylum seekers found dead in container at Dover’.

‘What is all this about?’ Alem asked.

‘Me and my husband are Irish,’ Mrs Fitzgerald replied. ‘We weren’t born here, you know. I came here when I was nine; my mother and father were starving. This country has helped us, this country has a lot to offer. But sometimes the newspapers and the politicians will pick on people to show how powerful they are and make us forget about the real problems. Get the Irish out, stop the travellers, stop the gays, blame the nurses and blame the teachers. They do it
all the time. Now it’s “get the refugees out”.’

Mr Fitzgerald made one of his rare interruptions. ‘That’s right, boy. There was a time when we had to be careful just because we were Irish. We were treated as if we were all members of the IRA. And I tell you no lie, not so long ago anyone who had any ideas of their own were called loony left or communist, and if you believed most of those so-called newspapers, all the ills in the country were caused by them. Now they want to tell us that the blacks and the refugees are causing all our problems. The truth is that the number of people that leave this country each year is much higher than the number of people that come here. And you know, if people didn’t come from abroad, we wouldn’t have a health service, or a bus service, and most of the great British corner shops would be gone. And guess what, mate – don’t just take it from me, check up on it – even the royal family, yes, even that lot, they came from abroad. These politicians make me sick!’

Mariam was taken aback by his diatribe. ‘There’s a lot of politics behind these headlines,’ she said, pointing to the newspaper cuttings. ‘I just thought you should know about the political climate here at the moment. But we have to focus on your case. You’ll have a very good barrister, Sheila will be writing a report about you, and the Refugee council will be backing you one hundred per cent.’

‘When will this hearing be?’ Alem asked.

‘We don’t have a date yet but it looks like it will be sometime in January. So let us do what has to be done for now and you can get on with school and enjoy your first English Christmas.’

Alem picked up the newspaper cuttings and put them into the folder. ‘Can I keep these?’ he said to Mariam.

Mariam was a bit surprised by the question. ‘Well yes, I suppose so; I can get other copies from the office. But Alem, why do you want to keep them?’

Alem placed the folder on his lap. ‘I want to know what these people think of me.’

Alem was given the date of 7th of January for the appeal hearing.

For the next few weeks Alem studied hard, even through the half-term break. The first book that he managed to read from cover to cover was
Great Expectations
, and in order to make sure that he could hold his own in any debate on the book, once he had finished reading it he read it again. English was by far his favourite subject, closely followed by design and technology, and science. On the whole there was very little about school that Alem didn’t like; each day he entered the school gates hungry for the challenge that lay ahead of him.

At first, he spent much of his break-times in school reading, until he realised that a social life was important too. He also became aware that some of his fellow students saw him as a bit of a nerd, so he began to spend more time hanging out with Robert and Buck. On the whole the teachers and students grew to like Alem; it was difficult not to. He rubbed no one up the wrong way, he worked hard and wasn’t threatening to
steal anyone’s girlfriend. He went to school for an education and he wasn’t going to let friendships get in the way. But he did meet his first female redhead at school. She was Christine Kirby. He saw her all the time but they only spoke once in what was a very brief, one-sided conversation outside the school.

She ran towards him as if she was going to run right through him, stopping close enough for him to recognise the flavour of her chewing gum, and said, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Alem Kelo,’ Alem replied, thinking that this could be the start of an interesting conversation.

She was in such a hurry, as she replied she chewed and spoke simultaneously. ‘Well, Alem, my friend over there fancies you,’ she said. Then she ran off.

Alem followed her with his eyes and saw her join a group of four girls looking at him and laughing. And that was it, the ginger-haired girl had come and gone.

Then there were occasions when practical jokes were played on him but he soon learned that it was nothing personal. He became a target because he was new to the school and because he had not familiarised himself with some of the more playful words of the English language.

He had been caught out with word games many times; the most memorable (or the most forgettable, depending on which way you looked at it) was in one particular ‘personal, social health education’ lesson.

The class was split into small groups to debate a specific subject set by the teacher and on this occasion it was the relationship between church and state. The teacher posed the question, ‘Should the government be attached to the church or is religion a personal thing?’

The class broke up into various groups to debate for a short time, after which the groups would reassemble to discuss the topic together. The teacher gave Alem the job of chairing the larger discussion; he thought it would help boost his confidence, and Alem was happy to have been chosen. When the time had come for the main discussion to start, Christopher Stone, a regular joker, moved in.

‘Hey, Alem,’ he said quite seriously, ‘everyone is saying how good the debates have been.’

‘That’s great,’ Alem said, moving into his position in front of the class. ‘We should have a very good discussion then.’

‘Yes,’ said Christopher, sounding excited. ‘I chaired one of these once and the teacher likes it if you thank everybody, you know, just thank everybody for taking part in the debates and making them so interesting. And let them know that you are looking forward to the larger debate, we call it a mass debate, you know what “mass” means, don’t you?’

‘I think so,’ Alem said, wondering why he was so concerned about his performance.

‘A mass is a large group of people.’

‘Yes,’ Alem replied, ‘I understand.’

Alem stood in front of the class. The teacher nodded his head, signalling that he could now begin. Alem was nervous. He swallowed hard and began.

‘The motion we are debating today is the church and state. Is religion political or personal? You have all had the chance to debate the issue in your various groups, I am now looking forward to what should be a very interesting mass debate.’

The class burst into laughter, even the teacher had a smile on his face. It was a trick that had been played before on others but it never failed to get the crowd going. Alem wasn’t sure what he had said wrong. He looked towards Christopher for help.

Christopher whispered loudly to him, ‘Say you’re sorry, you’re just a wanker.’

Alem repeated it immediately. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just a wanker.’

By now the whole class was roaring with laughter, kids held their stomachs to try and control themselves, others stamped their feet. The teacher stood up to take control.

‘OK, OK, you’ve had your fun, now calm down.’

Slowly, the noise level dropped and the debate continued, but it wasn’t until Alem was on his way home that he found out why it was all so funny. Robert also informed him that he wasn’t the first one to have had such tricks played on him. He then went on to explain
some of the ruder English words to Alem.

Sometimes Alem would walk home with Buck; they lived in the same general direction. Buck was very different from Robert. He never brought his guitar to school but every time he had an opportunity he would be singing or writing songs. Most of the people who came into contact with him sensed that they were in the presence of a future superstar, albeit the kind that becomes famous for being doomy and gloomy. But Alem got on well with him because he was a thinker, not easily lead and always trying to work things out for himself. During one conversation Alem told him how much he loved school and when Buck asked him why, Alem said, ‘Education, I want to be educated,’ to which Buck replied, ‘You can have an education and not be educated, and there is more to education than school.’

Alem missed seeing animals that weren’t just pets, he missed the sounds of home, he missed the smell of its earth, the smell of its people and even the smell of cities. He missed playing outdoors; people seemed to be constantly moving from one concrete building to another. He was quick to notice that if he ran into a friend outside, they would inevitably ask where he was going. No one, it seemed, was ever just outside; the closest he could find to that was ‘going for a walk’. Back home Alem had been used to making things,
here it seemed that when kids wanted things they bought them, when they broke they replaced them. He missed playing creatively. Back home he once found a front bicycle wheel and decided to make a bike; he had to seek out and even manufacture parts. One day at Great Milford he was told by a boy that his parents had bought him a new bike because the front wheel had broken and his mum thought it was bad luck.

Alem’s first major school holiday was Christmas. He knew that Christmas in London was going to be very different from Christmas back home, but he wasn’t prepared for the huge amount of advertising that was targeted at him, and he was quietly amused at the way people celebrated Christmas without celebrating the birth of Christ. He listened to his fellow students constantly talking about what they wanted for Christmas but he was pleased to find out that the Fitzgeralds were very relaxed about the whole thing.

On Christmas Day Alem was woken up by Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald. Ruth had gone to a party the night before and was staying with a friend.

‘Happy Christmas,’ they said calmly, almost as if they were just saying good morning.

Mrs Fitzgerald walked over to the window and opened the curtains. ‘Well, this is it, Alem, this is Christmas Day, east London style. Not much to it
really. We’re not that interested in Christmas, well, we don’t rave about it anyway.’

Mr Fitzgerald took over. ‘What we don’t know is what kind of thing you would want for Christmas, so we decided to give you this,’ he said, handing him a white envelope.

Alem sat up in bed and reached out to take the envelope. He opened it to find four crisp fifty pound notes in it.