Mosi's War Read online

  For Hamza, with thanks

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  The Fact Behind the Fiction

  Also by Cathy MacPhail

  Chapter 1

  It was the moving beam of light that caught Patrick’s eye. He wouldn’t even have glanced out of the landing window if it hadn’t been for that sudden, darting flash of light. It wasn’t as if there was anything to see out there. A vista of high-rises blocked out anything resembling a view. But the sun came out of the clouds and caught something and for just a second sent a firefly of light dancing across the walls. He took a few steps towards the landing window and he saw it. A figure balancing on the roof of the opposite building. The mesh of steel to stop people from falling, from jumping, had been ripped open and there stood a man, a man who looked more like a puppet than a human being. A second, no, less than a second later the man began to tumble, arms wide, flailing wildly, as if he was trying to catch hold of something, trying to save himself.

  Patrick stared. This couldn’t be real. It was some kind of joke. Patrick almost laughed as he watched the man falling. Sailing past balcony after balcony, going down floor by floor. Not making a sound.

  The world was silent.

  It seemed to him that the man was free-falling in slow motion. Patrick was mesmerised by the movement. He didn’t even realise he was holding his breath.

  Any second and the figure would hit the ground.

  Patrick knew he couldn’t watch that. He didn’t even want to think about it. He drew his eyes away and looked back to the roof. To look at anything other than the man hitting the ground. His legs began to buckle. He drew in a great gulp of air. And the world turned the volume up full blast. There were screams, yells, a car screeching to a halt. He only just stopped himself from screaming. But boys like Patrick didn’t scream. Instead, he stumbled back from the window. Stood trembling with his back pressed to the wall. The lift came then. Had it only been seconds since he had pressed the button for it? It seemed ages ago. The doors slid open. Waiting for him. He ignored them. The door to his own flat was on the latch, he always left it on the latch, always getting into trouble for that, from his mum, from his granny. If he went back into the flat, it would make him late for school, again, and then he’d get into more trouble, though he was usually late for school anyway. So why did he care, and why was he even thinking these things?

  ‘Mum . . . Mum . . .’ he began to shout as he ran down the hall. ‘There’s a man . . . he fell . . . he jumped . . . I saw it.’

  His mother, sitting in the living room, still in her dressing gown, looked up from her magazine. ‘Are you no’ away to school yet?’

  ‘Mum, the man fell, I saw him.’

  He grabbed her arm, pulled her from the seat.

  ‘What do you think you’re playing at, Patrick!’ She tried to shake herself free, but he dragged her down the hall, still babbling about what he had seen. Not making any sense. He knew he wasn’t making sense. He wanted her to see. He hauled her to the landing window. He dared to look below. Now it was alive with people, swarming like ants around the figure lying on the ground, surrounding him so he was almost blocked from view. In the distance they could already hear the siren of an ambulance, or maybe a police car.

  It was as if his mother only just took in what he was saying. ‘You saw that man fall?’

  He couldn’t talk to her. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He only nodded.

  ‘Oh, son . . .’ And for the first time in an age, his mother hugged him.

  Mosi was on the way to school when he heard the commotion. He lived in the same block of flats as Patrick. Three floors below him. But they hardly saw each other except in class. Mosi had left early. He always did. So he had missed the drama that Patrick had witnessed. But bad news travels fast and as he walked he heard snatches of the whispered talk as he passed groups of people gathering on the estate.

  ‘Somebody’s fell.’

  ‘It was a man.’

  ‘I heard he jumped.’

  ‘Anybody know who it was?’

  ‘Only one of them asylum seekers.’

  Mosi didn’t stop. Though he was angry inside. They spoke, some of them, as if the life of an asylum seeker meant nothing. As if asylum seekers didn’t feel as other people felt.

  He was angry too, more angry, at the man who died. His death would bring the police, publicity, questions. Hadn’t he thought of the other asylum seekers who lived here on this estate? Didn’t he consider what his death, his suicide would mean to them? Selfish man. Selfish.

  He stopped to watch some boys playing football. Kicking the ball from one to the other. He knew them. They were in his school, some of them in his class. One of the older boys turned to watch him. He smiled. Mosi tried to remember his name.

  ‘Hey, Mosi,’ the boy called out to him. Brian . . . that was his name. Always friendly. ‘Come on and have a game.’

  Two of the other boys stepped forward. ‘Do you know the man who topped himself?’ one of them shouted.

  Mosi didn’t answer him. Didn’t want to. Didn’t want to think of the man who had jumped.

  ‘Did you know him, Mosi?’ This time it was Brian who asked.

  Again he didn’t answer.

  Brian called out again. ‘Come on, have a kick about before you go to school. It’ll be a laugh.’

  Another boy pulled him back. ‘Leave him be, Brian. That wee Mosi’s a weirdo.’

  Brian gave him a final wave, then he turned back to his friends. Mosi continued to walk on. What the boy had said hadn’t hurt him. Nothing could hurt him now. Anyway, he wasn’t a weirdo.

  He was something much worse.

  Chapter 2

  Patrick began to think it was almost worth seeing a man fall to his death to get the morning off school. That, and being the centre of attention. Well, actually, the dead man was the centre of attention, but Patrick was running a close second. Patrick’s mother had dragged him downstairs to the crowd who had all gathered there. She had a habit of dragging him places.

  ‘My boy saw it happen!’ she called out dramatically as they emerged from their block. She hauled him into the middle of the crowd. There was a cover over the dead man now. Patrick was glad of that. He tried not to think of what was lying underneath. ‘My Patrick saw everything!’ she shouted out to anyone who would listen. Everyone did. They all turned. ‘Didn’t you, P
atrick?’ She shook him and he nodded. Couldn’t stop his head from nodding. He felt like one of those dogs you see in the back of cars. His mother went on. ‘He saw it all from up there.’ She pointed a scarlet-nailed finger at a window somewhere high in the tower block. ‘He was waiting for the lift. He was going to school.’

  A big policeman pushed his way through the crowd. Patrick recognised him, and swallowed. This community cop knew Patrick well. ‘Ah, Patrick Cleary, you again,’ he said.

  Patrick was still nodding.

  ‘And you saw this?’ He expected the policeman not to believe him, to dismiss him as a liar. Patrick had a reputation for telling stories. But the policeman did a surprising thing. ‘Aye,’ he went on. ‘I can see you saw it. You’re as white as a sheet, son.’

  ‘Oh, he’s always that colour,’ his mother said. ‘But even his freckles are white this morning.’

  The policeman led Patrick gently to a graffiti-covered bench. Patrick was responsible for most of the graffiti there. Pretty good stuff too, he thought. And he thought again, why am I thinking these things, noticing these thing? But why, at a time like this, am I thinking about graffiti?

  ‘Sit down, Patrick.’ The policeman turned to his mother. ‘I think your boy could do with a glass of water.’

  His mother immediately delegated that task to a woman behind her. ‘Could you get my boy a glass of water.’ Then she turned to the policeman again. ‘He’s been in shock since he saw it. Do you think he might need counselling?’ Patrick could almost see the wheels of his mother’s brain turning.

  The policeman ignored her again. He sat down beside Patrick. ‘Now, tell me everything you saw.’

  He thought he wouldn’t find his voice, but he opened his mouth and the words came out, tumbled out, faster and faster, everything he’d seen. It took him longer to say what happened than it took for that man to hit the ground. And Patrick lived those seconds again, seconds that seemed to stretch to an age.

  He was interviewed for the television too. The van drew up even before the emergency services had arrived. A reporter pushed his way through, shoving what looked like a hairy lollipop into his face and asking him to describe what he’d seen.

  Out it all came again. ‘Something made me look over at the other flat, and I saw him.’

  ‘Did he look as if he meant to jump?’

  And Patrick saw those terrible moments played out in his mind again.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, he jumped . . . but I think he changed his mind. He jumped, and then, he seemed to panic.’ He was breathing hard, on the verge of panic himself, feeling what that man must have felt as he fell. ‘I think he changed his mind . . .’ he said again.

  The policeman had heard enough. He covered the reporter’s microphone with his big hand, and held the television crew back. Even told his mother to get out of the way. ‘This is too much for a young boy. Get him back home, make him a strong cup of tea. He’ll need to give a proper statement later, but I’ll make sure he’s not bothered till then.’

  His mother wasn’t too happy about that. She was quite enjoying the ‘being bothered’ bit. But she took him up to the flat anyway, telling anyone who would listen. ‘I would love to stay down here, but . . . you know me, I always put my boy first.’

  Chapter 3

  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.

  Chapter 4

  ‘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 kn
ow 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?’

  Chapter 5

  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.