Refugee Boy (8 page)

He was slowly getting used to the food, but he didn’t find it inspiring. It was very much the meat-and-two-veg type, but the Fitzgeralds did experiment sometimes and gravy was always available to make the food wet. He was bought warm clothes with the financial allowance that was given for him. Sheila phoned regularly and visited them twice, and on one occasion she brought Mariam along with her. Alem was doing fine but he did lack one crucial thing, which he brought to the attention of the Fitzgeralds over the remains of an evening meal.

‘Do you think that it’s possible for me to go to school here?’

‘Of course,’ replied Mrs Fitzgerald. ‘In fact, I did
have a word with Sheila about that and she said that she had already spoken to the local school and that we should apply when you have settled in. We can go any time, they’re expecting us.’

‘I have settled in,’ Alem said gleefully.

‘You can say that again,’ said Mr Fitzgerald, nodding in the direction of Alem’s empty plate. ‘Now would you like a cup of tea?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Biscuits?’

‘Yes, please.’ Alem had developed a strong liking for biscuits, especially the Bourbon type, but he wasn’t keen on tea.

Ruth picked seedless grapes from a large bunch on the table in the dining room. Alem stretched his arm out, holding the plate of biscuits in her direction.

‘Would you like a biscuit, Ruth?’

‘No,’ she said, staring into the grapes.

He asked another question in an attempt to strike up a conversation. ‘Do you like biscuits?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘In Africa we have very strong thick coffee, do you have that here?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ruth replied.

‘What I have noticed in England is that so many people drink tea; everywhere you go, people ask if you want a cup of tea. We have tea back home but here people drink it every five minutes, and tea
here is so full of milk.’

‘So what?’ Ruth answered abruptly. She stood up and stormed out of the dining room.

Mrs Fitzgerald shouted, ‘Ruth, you come back here now!’

Ruth walked slowly back into the room. ‘What’s wrong now?’

‘You know what’s wrong,’ Mrs Fitzgerald said. ‘Why are you speaking to Alem like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like that, all rude and abrupt. Have some manners!’

‘I’m not rude and abrupt – anyway I’m not feeling well, I have to go to the bathroom,’ she said as she started to walk out.

Mrs Fitzgerald turned to Alem. ‘I’m sorry, sometimes she gets like this. It’s nothing, just ignore her.’

There were no more such outbursts but the tension was ever present. And there was not much for them to talk about. Ruth was into pop music, Alem was into books; Alem loved buildings, Ruth loved clothes; Alem thought Ruth’s parents were interesting, Ruth thought they were boring; Alem was thirsty for knowledge but Ruth thought that she knew it all.

Despite the lack of communication between him and Ruth, Alem did not have a single bad word to say against the Fitzgerald family – at one point he even tried hard to find faults after watching a television
programme on the failures of mixed-race adoption. The programme highlighted case after case of white families that had adopted and fostered black kids and failed because of a lack of understanding or of cultural differences. But Alem was sure the Ruth problem wasn’t about race, and he had come to the conclusion that the Fitzgerald family’s willingness to look after him was more important than their lack of African culture. Their lack of African culture was not their fault.

The day before Alem had to visit the school, Mrs Fitzgerald called Ruth into the living room where Alem was sitting. ‘Ruth, tell Alem about the school! It wasn’t that long ago you were there, I suspect not much has changed.’

Ruth sat on the chair opposite Alem. She sighed and crossed her legs and began to pick things off her jeans that could only have been visible to her eyes. Her mother noticed her actions, as did Alem.

‘Well, the school’s called Great Milford,’ Ruth said as she groomed her jeans, ‘there are more boys than girls, the playground’s big, the library’s big, the classes are big, the headmaster talks a lot and the teachers are not bad, and when I was there they boasted that they spoke about twenty languages.’

‘What!’ Alem said, eyebrows raised high in surprise. ‘The teachers are that good, they speak twenty different languages?’

‘No,’ said Ruth, ‘I didn’t mean it like that. They – the teachers – were boasting that there were about twenty different languages spoken by the pupils of the school.’

‘What else?’ Mrs Fitzgerald said. ‘Tell him more.’

‘The building’s about seventy years old, the teachers are about seventy years old, it’s never had a royal visit, and there’s mice in the kitchen. It’s OK, but I hated it,’ she said.

Ruth was serious. Alem smiled. Mrs Fitzgerald said, ‘I knew I shouldn’t have asked you.’

Early the next morning Alem went to the school with Mrs Fitzgerald to make enquiries about his admission. After an interview with the headmaster, they were told to go home and wait. They were assured that the school would contact them very soon.

That night Alem took longer than usual to fall asleep. He was excited about the prospect of going to school; he missed school and was eager to take up the challenge of learning in an English school. When he had thought enough about that subject, he began to look at the photo and think about his family’s situation. Since moving to Manor Park, he had been so busy getting to know the area and getting to know the Fitzgeralds that he hadn’t had much time to think about anything else. At quieter moments, when he was not watching television or reading one of the
many books in his room, he would be playing CD-ROM games on the computer. He was slow at first but he soon learned how to play games such as Treasure Hunt and Euro Racer. When he was not playing he would be working his way around one of the many educational CD-ROMs.

Alem was amazed at the amount of knowledge that was lying around in his bedroom. When he first moved into the room he formed a plan that he had not told anyone about: he wanted to read every book in his room. But in his overeagerness to learn, he hadn’t finished a single one. Instead, at the side of his bed he had four piles of books, each one with a bookmark inside it, each one unfinished. His ambition had changed. All he wanted to do now was to finish one; he only wondered which book he would finish first. His inability to finish a book was not due to laziness, on the contrary, he wanted to know everything immediately, he couldn’t learn quickly enough. There were times when he would sit on his bed reading one book, and then he would stop to mentally digest something he had just read. He would spot another book sitting on the shelves waiting for a mind, a bookmark would be placed in the book he was reading, that book would join the queue at the side of his bed, and the newly discovered book would be taken off the shelf. But it would only be a matter of time before the new love would be cast aside, and Alem would go on
another literary adventure.

As he lay on his bed in the darkness, he thought about what was happening back home. He wondered how his parents were and what was happening to his friend Dawit back in Ethiopia. Although people knew Alem’s story, no one really talked about the war back home; London was like another world. Until now life here had been relatively easy; he had had a scrap in the children’s home, he couldn’t quite understand Ruth, he hated the cold, but he hadn’t seen a gun or heard any aircraft fire. He knew a little about the British Empire, still he couldn’t understand how Britain had gained its reputation for being a strong military power because he hadn’t seen a single soldier on its streets. Where were these soldiers? He might not have put great effort into keeping up with what was happening with the war back home but not a day passed without him thinking about his parents. It was hard trying to remember his parents and forget the war at the same time.

In the morning a very excited Mrs Fitzgerald shook Alem with one hand – ‘Alem, Alem, wake up!’ In the other hand she held a spatula. She was wearing a flowery apron and was flushed with excitement. ‘Alem, good news! I’ve just had a phone call from Great Milford. You can start school on Monday. Isn’t that just wonderful now?’

‘Yes, Mrs Fitzgerald,’ Alem replied, excited but a little too sleepy to express his excitement, ‘it’s just wonderful now. How long can I stay there for?’

‘You can stay there for as long as you like,’ she said, levelling out her voice. ‘You can stay there until you’re sixteen if you like, if you’re good, that is; it’s your school.’

Alem swiftly sat up in the bed. ‘What, do you think I will still be here when I am sixteen?’

‘That’s another question,’ Mrs Fitzgerald replied, ‘and one we don’t know the answer to – so let’s deal with what we know now, you’re going to school. Come down and get your breakfast, there’s a good boy.’ She looked down on the floor and then at the bookshelves. ‘Alem, Mr Fitzgerald made all these wonderful bookshelves so that the books could be put on them for safekeeping; try using them, please.’

‘Yes, Mrs Fitzgerald, I’m sorry,’ Alem replied, looking down at the tower blocks of books he had created.

The main topic of conversation at breakfast was the admission of Alem to the school. Alem asked many questions about attending the school, most of which were about money. He found it hard to believe that not only was the attendance at the school free, but he didn’t have to pay for books either. Mrs Fitzgerald told Alem that she already had a uniform on order with a deposit paid.

Alem and Mrs Fitzgerald spent most of Saturday shopping on Romford Road. Alem’s uniform was ready and waiting for him and it fitted perfectly, but he also had to try on new trainers and get the right bag to put them in. Most of the shopkeepers were familiar with Mrs Fitzgerald. Alem could see that she had done this before, but still he felt special being the centre of attention.

He spent most of Sunday trying on his new uniform.

‘Those of you who are observant will have noticed that new wastepaper baskets have been placed at various locations around the playground. Personally, I have always felt that the number of bins that we had previously was adequate, but judging by the amount of litter we are finding in the playground, it seems that many of you are unable to use one unless it is right under your nose. I do hope that you will make use of these waste-placement vessels from now on. They do cost money, they do have a purpose, and they do help to make the school a much better place to be in.’

Alem sat right at the back of the assembly hall listening to the headmaster speaking. He had never seen anything like this. Teachers looked on from various points around the hall as the headmaster delivered his address to the fidgety pupils from the raised stage. Alem was mesmerised.

‘Unfortunately, two boys were permanently excluded last week for bringing knives on to the school premises. We exclude pupils only very reluctantly
from this school, but there are simply no two ways about it, we will
not
tolerate the presence of any weapons on these premises. We, all of us here, sent a message of condolence to St Luke’s when Mr Gatsby was stabbed to death in his own classroom. And then, in this very hall, we spoke about what could have possibly led up to such a killing taking place in an educational institution. And all of us agreed – and if I remember well, there were no dissenting voices – that we would try our very best to make sure that we never reached that point. Well, this was the second time those boys had been caught with knives. They simply could not be allowed to get away with it a second time, so I was left with no alternative but to exclude them. Let this be a lesson to you all, but more important, let the death of Mr Gatsby be a lesson to us all. Remember our school motto,
live to learn
,
learn to live
, and let us be true to our word.’

Alem was still fully focused on the headmaster. He took in every single word as if his life depended on it. He was shocked by what he was hearing and wondered if the headmaster might be exaggerating. This was the first talk of anything like war that he had heard since arriving in Britain and here he was, hearing it on his first day at school.

‘Now I want to give you some good news,’ the headmaster continued. ‘Those of you that read the
Newham Recorder
would have seen two of our pupils
on its front page this week. Both Teresa Grant and Inderjit Singh made the front page of our local paper because of the amount of time they have devoted to helping the older members of our community. This is an example of the kind of news that Great Milford School should be known for; these are the kind of pupils that we can all be proud of. I would like them both to come up on the stage to receive one of our very own Positive Pupil’s Certificates.’

The two pupils walked to the stage to receive their certificates as the teachers and the other pupils clapped. Alem clapped and quietly whispered to himself, ‘Positive pupil.’ He liked the sound of it.

‘Now, off to your classes, and let’s be wiser come the end of the day,’ said the headmaster as the two pupils left the stage. Immediately, the hall erupted with sound as everyone stood up and began to chatter.

‘Quietly!’ shouted the headmaster at the top of his voice.

‘Hello, Alem!’ The voice came from a teacher approaching him. She was wearing a sari and it looked to Alem as if she was gliding towards him. ‘My name is Mrs Kumar, I’m head of your form and I need to give you this.’ She handed him a timetable. ‘If you spend a few minutes on it, you’ll see how it works. Pretty straightforward really, subject, classroom, time, it’s easy, and if you have any problems finding the classrooms, just ask another pupil. Your first lesson is
English. I’m going that way, follow me.’

Two corridors later, Mrs Kumar opened the classroom door for Alem. ‘There you go,’ she said and walked away.

Alem nervously walked into the room. There was no teacher. Pupils were sitting or standing around their desks talking loudly and joking. Alem didn’t know what to do with himself. He stood just inside the room waiting for something to happen, hoping that the teacher would come and instruct him on protocol, or at least tell him where to sit. Some of the pupils glanced at Alem but carried on telling their stories and trying to make each other laugh. Alem felt insignificant.