I knew that second girl a bit. I was in the same room as her for two weeks one time, but I never talked with her. She did not speak one word of anyone’s English. That is why she just shrugged and held on tight to her bag of lemon yellow. So the girl on the phone, she pointed her eyes up at the ceiling, the same way the detention officer at his desk did.
Then the girl on the phone turned to the third girl in the queue and she said to her, Do yu know the name ofdis place where we is at? But the third girl did not know either. She just stood there, and she was wearing a blue T-shirt and blue denim jeans and white Dunlop Green Flash trainers, and she just looked down at her own see-through bag, and her bag was full of letters and documents. There was so much paper in that bag, all crumpled and creased, she had to hold one hand under the bag to stop it all bursting out. Now, this third girl, I knew her a little bit too. She was not pretty and she was not a good talker either, but there is one more thing that can save you from being sent home early. This girl’s thing was, she had her story all written down and made official. There were rubber stamps at the end of her story that said in red ink this is TRUE. I remember she told me her story once and it went something like,
the-men-came-and-they-
burned-my-village-
tied-my-girls-
raped-my-girls-
took-my-girls-
whipped-my-husband-
cut-my-breast-
I-ran-away-
through-the-bush-
found-a-ship-
crossed-the-sea-
and-then-they-put-me-in-here. Or some such story like that. I got confused with all the stories in that detention centre. All the girls’ stories started out, the-men-catne-and-they-. And all of the stories finished, and-then-they-put-me-in-here. All the stories were sad, but you and I have made our agreement concerning sad words. With this girl—girl three in the queue—her story had made her so sad that she did not know the name of the place where she was at and she did not want to know. The girl was not even curious.
So the girl with the telephone receiver, she asked her again. What? she said. Yw no talk neither? How come yu not know the name dis place we at?
Then the third girl in the queue, she just pointed her eyes up at the ceiling, and so the girl with the telephone receiver pointed her own eyes up at the ceiling for a second time. I was thinking, Okay, now the detention officer has looked at the ceiling one time and girl three has looked at the ceiling one time and girl one has looked at the ceiling two times, so maybe there are some answers up on that ceiling after all. Maybe there is something very cheerful up there. Maybe there are stories written on the ceiling that go something like:
the-men-came-and-they-
brought-us-colourful-dresses-
fetched-wood-for-the-fire-
told-some-crazy-jokes-
drank-beer-with-us-
chased-us-till-we-giggled-
stopped-the-mosquitoes-from-biting-
told-us-the-trick-for-catching-the-British-one-
pound-coin-
turned-the-moon-into-cheese-
Oh, and then they put me in here.
I looked at the ceiling, but it was only white paint and fluorescent light tubes up there.
The girl on the telephone, she finally looked at me. So I said to her, The name of this place is the Black Hill Immigration Removal Centre. The girl stared at me. Yu kiddin wid me, she said. What kine of a name is dat? So I pointed at the little metal plate that was screwed on the wall above the telephone. The girl looked at it and then she looked back to me and she said, Sorry, darlin, I can not ridd it. So I read it out to her, and I pointed to the words one at a time. BLACK HILL IMMIGRATION REMOVAL CENTRE, HIGH EASTER, CHELMSFORD, ESSEX. Thank you, precious, the first girl said, and she lifted up the telephone receiver.
She said into the receiver: All right now, listen, mister, the place I is right now is called Black Hill Immigration Removal. Then she said, No, please, wait. Then she looked sad and she put the telephone receiver back down on the telephone. I said, What is wrong? The first girl sighed and she said, Taxi man say he no pick up from dis place. Then he say, You people are scum. You know dis word?
I said no, because I did not know for sure, so I took my Collins Gem Pocket English Dictionary out of my see-through bag and I looked up the word. I said to the first girl, You are a film of impurities or vegetation that can form on the surface of a liquid. She looked at me and I looked at her and we giggled because we did not understand what to do with the information. This was always my trouble when I was learning to speak your language. Every word can defend itself. Just when you go to grab it, it can split into two separate meanings so the understanding closes on empty air. I admire you people. You are like sorcerers and you have made your language as safe as your money.
So me and the first girl in the telephone queue, we were giggling at each other, and I was holding my see-through bag and she was holding her see-through bag. There was one black eyebrow pencil and one pair of tweezers and three rings of dried pineapple in hers.
The first girl saw me looking at her bag and she stopped giggling. What you starin at? she said. I said I did not know. She said, I know what you linking. You linking, now the taxi no come for to pick me up, how far me going to get wid one eyebrow pencil an one tweezer an ihree pineapple slice? So I told her, Maybe you can use ihe eyebrow pencil to write a message that says HELP ME, and then you can give the pineapple slices to the first person who does. The girl looked at me like I was crazy in the head and she said to me: Okay, darlin, one, I got no paper for to write no message on, two, I no know how to write, I only know how to draw on me eyebrows, an tree, me intend to eat that pineapple meself. And she made her eyes wide and stared at me.
While this was happening, the second girl in the queue, the girl with the lemon yellow sari and the see-through bag full of yellow, she had become the first girl in the queue, because now she held the telephone receiver in her own hand. She was whispering into it in some language that sounded like butterflies drowning in honey. I tapped the girl on her shoulder, and pulled at her sari, and I said to her: Please, you must try to talk to them in English. The sari girl looked at me, and she stopped talking in her butterfly language. Very slowly and carefully, like she was remembering the words from a dream, she said into the telephone receiver: England, Yes please. Yes please thank you, I want go to England.
So the girl in the purple A-line dress, she put her nose right up to the nose of the girl in the lemon yellow sari, and she tapped her finger on the girl’s forehead and made a sound with her mouth like a broom handle hitting an empty barrel. Bong! Bong! she said to the girl. You already is in England, get it? And she pointed both her index fingers down at the linoleum floor. She said: Dis is England, darlin, ya nub see it? Right here, yeh? Dis where we at all-reddy.
The girl in the yellow sari went quiet. She just stared back with those green eyes like jelly moons. So the girl in the purple dress, the Jamaican girl, she said, Here, gimme dat, and she grabbed the telephone receiver out of the sari girl’s hand. And she lifted the receiver to her mouth and she said, Listen, wait., one minnit please. But then she went quiet and she passed the telephone receiver to me and I listened, and it was just the dial tone. So I turned to the sari girl. You have to dial a number first, I said. You understand? Dial number first, then tell taxi man where you want to go. Okay?
But the girl in the sari, she just narrowed her eyes at me, and pulled her see-through bag of lemon yellow a little closer to her, like maybe I was going to take that away from her the way the other girl had taken the telephone receiver. The girl in the purple dress, she sighed and turned to me. It ain’t no good, darlin, she said. De Lord gonna call his chillen home fore dis one calls for a taxi. And she passed the telephone receiver to me. Here, she said. Yu betta try one time.
I pointed to the third girl in the queue, the one with the bag of documents and the blue T-shirt and the Dunlop Green Flash trainers. What about her? I said. This girl is
before me in the queue. Yeh, said the girl in the purple dress, but dis ooman ain’t got no mo-tee-VAY-shun. Ain’t dat right, darlin? And she stared at the girl with the documents, but the girl with the documents just shrugged and looked down at her Dunlop Green Flash shoes. Ain’t dat de truth, said the girl in the purple dress, and she turned back to me. It’s up to yu, darlin. Yu got to talk us out a here, fore dey change dey mind an lock us all back up.
I looked down at the telephone receiver and it was grey and dirty and I was afraid. I looked back at the girl in the purple dress. Where do you want to go? I said. And she said, Any ends. Excuse me? Anywhere, darlin.
I dialled the taxi number that was written on the phone. A man’s voice came on. He sounded tired. Cab service, he said. The way he said it, it was like he was doing me a big favour just by saying those words.
“Good morning, I would like a taxi please.”
“You want a cab?”
“Yes. Please. A taxi-cab. For four passengers.”
“Where from?”
“From the Black Hill Immigration Removal Centre, please. In High Easter. It is near Chelmsford.”
“I know where it is. Now you listen to me—”
“Please, it is okay. I know, you do not pick up refugees. We are not refugees. We are cleaners. We work in this place.”
“You’re cleaners?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s the truth, is it? Because if I had a pound for every bloody immigrant that got in the back of one of my cabs and didn’t know where they wanted to go and started prattling on to my driver in Swahili and tried to pay him in cigarettes, I’d be playing golf at this very moment instead of talking to you.”
“We are cleaners.”
“All right. It’s true you don’t talk like one of them. Where do you want to go?”
I had memorised the address on the United Kingdom driver’s licence in my gee-through plastic bag. Andrew O’Rourke, the white man I met on the beach: he lived in Kingston-upon-Thames in the English county of Surrey. I spoke into the telephone.
“Kingston, please.”
The girl in the purple dress grabbed my arm and hissed at me. No, darlin! she said. Anywhere but Jamaica. Dey mens be killin me de minnit I ketch dere, kill me dead. I did not understand why she was scared, but I know now. There is a Kingston in England but there is also a Kingston in Jamaica, where the climate is different. This is another great work you sorcerers have done—even your cities have two tails.
“Kingston?” said the man on the telephone.
“Kingston-upon-Thames,” I said.
“That’s bloody miles away, isn’t it? That’s over in, what?”
“Surrey,” I said.
“Surrey. You are four cleaners from leafy Surrey, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“No. We are cleaners from near by. But they are sending us on a cleaning job in Surrey.”
“Cash or account, then?”
The man sounded so tired.
“What?”
“Will you pay in cash, or is it going on the detention centre’s bill?”
“We will pay in cash, mister. We will pay when we get there.”
“You’d better.”
I listened for a minute and then I pressed my hand down on the cradle of the telephone receiver. I dialled another number. This was the telephone number from the business card I carried in my see-through plastic bag. The business card was damaged by water. I could not tell if the last number was an 8 or a 3. I tried an 8, because in my country odd numbers bring bad luck, and that is one thing I had already had enough of.
A man answered the call. He was angry.
“Who is this? It’s bloody six in the morning.”
“Is this Mr Andrew O’Rourke?”
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“Can I come to see you, mister?”
“Who the hell is this?”
“We met on the beach in Nigeria. I remember you very well, Mr O’Rourke. I am in England now. Can I come to see you and Sarah? I do not have anywhere else to go.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then the man coughed, and started to laugh.
“This is a wind-up, right? Who is this? I’m warning you, I get nutters like you on my case all the time. Leave me alone, or you won’t get away with it. My paper always prosecutes. They’ll have this call traced and find out who you are and have you arrested. You wouldn’t be the first.”
“You don’t believe it is me?”
“Just leave me alone. Understand? I don’t want to hear about it. All that stuff happened a long time ago and it wasn’t my fault.”
“I will come to your house. That way you will believe it is me.”
“No.”
“I do not know anyone else in this country, Mr O’Rourke. I am sorry. I am just telling you, so that you can be ready.”
The man did not sound angry any more. He made a small sound, like a child when it is nervous about what will happen. I hung up the phone and turned round to the other girls. My heart was pounding so fast, I thought I would vomit right there on the linoleum floor. The other girls were staring at me, nervous and expectant.
“Well?” said the girl in the purple dress.
“Hmm?”I said.
“De-taxi, darlin! What is happenin about de taxi?”
“Oh, yes, the taxi. The taxi man said a cab will pick us up in ten minutes. He said we are to wait outside.”
The girl in the purple dress, she smiled.
“Mi name is Yevette. From Jamaica, zeen. You useful, darlin. What dey call yu?”
“My name is Little Bee.”
“What kinda name yu call dat?”
“It is my name.”
“What kind of place yu come from, dey go roun callin little gals de names of insects?”
“Nigeria.”
Yevette laughed. It was a big laugh, like the way the chief baddy laughs in the pirate films. WU-ha-ha-ha-ha! It made the telephone receiver rattle in its cradle. Nye-JIRRYA! said Yevette. Then she turned round to the others, the girl in the sari and the girl with the documents. Come wid us, gals, she said. We de United Nations, see it, an today we is all followin Nye-JIRRYA. WV-ha-ha-ha-ha!
2-5
Yevette was still laughing when the four of us girls walked out past the security desk, towards the door. The detention officer looked up from his newspaper when we went by. The topless girl was gone now—the officer had turned the page. I looked down at his newspaper. The headline on the new page said ASYLUM SEEKERS EATING OUR SWANS. I looked back at the detention officer, but he would not look up at me. While I looked, he moved his arm over the page to cover the headline. He made it look as if he needed to scratch his elbow. Or maybe he really did need to scratch his elbow. I realised I knew nothing about men apart from the fear. A uniform that is too big for you, a desk that is too small for you, an eight-hour shift that is too long for you, and suddenly here comes a girl with three kilos of documents and no motivation, another one with jelly-green eyes and a yellow sari who is so beautiful you cannot look at her for too long in case your eyeballs go ploof, a third girl from Nigeria who is named after a honeybee, and a noisy woman from Jamaica who laughs like the pirate Bluebeard. Perhaps this is exactly the type of circumstance that makes a man’s elbow itch.
I turned to look back at the detention officer just before we went out through the double doors. He was watching us leave. He looked very small and lonely there, with his thin little wrists, under the fluorescent lights. The light made his skin look green, the colour of a baby caterpillar just out of the egg. The early morning sunshine was shining in through the door glass. The officer screwed up his eyes against the daylight. I suppose we were just silhouettes to him. He opened his mouth, as if he was going to say something, but he stopped.
“What?” I said. I realised he was going to tell us there had been a mistake. I wondered if we should run. I did not want to go back in detention. I wondered how far we would get if we ran.
I wondered if they would come after us with dogs.
The detention officer stood up. I heard his chair scrape on the linoleum floor. He stood there with his hands at his sides.
“Ladies?” he said.
“Yes?”
He looked down at the ground, and then up again.
“Best of luck,” he said.
And we girls turned round and walked towards the light.
I pushed open the double doors, and then I froze. It was the sunlight that stopped me. I felt so fragile from the detention centre, I was afraid those bright rays of sunshine would snap me in half. I couldn’t take that first step outside.
“What is de hold-up, Lil Bee?”
Yevette was standing behind me. I was blocking the door for everyone.
“One moment, please.”
Outside, the fresh air smelled of wet grass. It blew in my face. The smell made me panic. For two years I had smelled only bleach, and my nail varnish, and the other detainees’ cigarettes. Nothing natural. Nothing like this. I felt that if I took one step forward, the earth itself would rise up and refect me. There was nothing natural about me now. I stood there in my heavy boots with my breasts strapped down, neither a woman nor a girl, a creature who had forgotten her language and learned yours, whose past had crumbled to dust.
“What de hell yii waitin fo, darlin?”
“I am scared, Yevette.”
Yevette shook her head and she smiled.
“Maybe yu’s right to be scared, Lil Bee, cos yu a smart girl. Maybe me jus too dumb to be fraid. But me spend eighteen month locked up in dat place, an if yu tink me dumb enough to wait one second longer on account of your tremblin an your quakin, yu better tink two times.”