Mosi's War Read online

  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?

  Chapter 6

  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.’

  ‘This means trouble for us,’ Mosi’s father said.

  Mosi agreed. The media made things worse, calling this a grim estate, talking of racist attacks, all this would stir up bad feeling when the majority of them – asylum seekers and the local people – just wanted to keep their heads down. Live quietly. Like Mosi and his parents. And so many of the people here had been helpful and kind. People had offered them furniture, clothes, even food. There were a lot of good people here. But of course, that didn’t make such a good story for the media.

  Mosi had a tight knot in his stomach. Fear. He recognised it. Had felt it so often before. Something inside him was warning him, bad things were coming. And he didn’t know how to avoid them.

  After dinner he stood at the window. Looked out over the grey concrete concourse. Black clouds hung so low over the tops of the flats it seemed he could reach out and sink his hands into them. It had begun to rain hard, hitting against the glass like needles. It was a grim estate, Mosi agreed, thunder-grey skies, dark stone, cold winds. Not like his own country – cornflower-blue sky, the hot sun.

  But there was no homesickness in him. He missed the sun, but that was all. Even hemmed in by all this grey concrete he felt safer here, safer than he could ever remember.
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  Yet, he knew he wasn’t safe. Would he ever be?

  A figure ran out of the flats and across the concourse. A boy, his maroon hood pulled over his head. He stopped for a minute waiting for a car to pass before he crossed the street. For a moment he turned and looked up. Almost as if he was looking up at Mosi. Instinctively, Mosi stepped back from the window. The figure was Patrick.

  Chapter 7

  ‘Here’s wee Patrick.’ Cody was waiting for him by the betting shop. He was surrounded by a group of boys. Some Patrick knew, some he didn’t. ‘Are you up for it, Patrick?’

  Patrick stopped in his tracks, spread his arms wide. ‘Ready for anything, me.’

  That wasn’t completely true. Sometimes Cody got up to things Patrick didn’t want to take part in – smashing the chip-shop windows came to mind, or the night they set fire to one of the derelict buildings on the estate. But once he’d started running with Cody’s gang, it was hard to say no. And Cody liked him, Patrick was sure of it. He made Cody laugh, and not a lot of people could say that. Most important for Patrick, he had somewhere to go at night, people to share things with. It was always exciting, and Patrick liked exciting.

  ‘We’re going to the underpass,’ Cody said, pulling Patrick on.

  ‘The underpass?’ Patrick was already running alongside him.

  ‘They’ve cleaned it up. Fresh walls just waiting for us.’

  No one ever used the underpass, not at night. It was a short cut under the dual carriageway, leading from the estate to the retail park on the other side of the road. But at night, people would rather take the long way, use the pedestrian crossings, or cross over the bridge. Some people even used the old cemetery that stretched right up behind the estate as a short cut. Safer than the underpass at night-time. The lights were always broken. People had been mugged in there. Only recently a headless cat had been found hanging by its feet, its blood dripping on the ground. That had caused quite a stir. Some people blamed the asylum seekers, especially the African ones. Convinced it had something to do with the voodoo rituals they must have brought from their own countries. Others blamed the gangs of boys who roamed the estate at night, trying to cause trouble. Gangs like Cody’s, or his older brother’s.

  Only one dim light was working. It gave the underpass an eerie glow. But even in this semi-darkness Patrick could see that Cody was right. The underpass had been cleaned up. The walls had been freshly painted white – ready and waiting. Patrick couldn’t help feeling excited. There was something about a blank wall that made his heart beat faster. Did that mean there was something wrong with him? He would never tell anyone how much he enjoyed this. He had a talent, he knew he did. A talent his teachers didn’t appreciate, a talent his mother had never noticed. But Cody had. That was maybe why he wanted Patrick with him on these nights when they roamed the estate, painting anonymous messages on walls, leaving trails and signs behind them.

  Cody turned to him. ‘Come on, wee man, do your stuff. Something about that guy falling off the roof, eh? I mean, you saw it. Draw what it looked like, eh? Go on.’

  Patrick had already taken out his can, but he felt his hand tremble. He tried to say no. He didn’t want to draw that. He wanted to shake the image away. Cody held his gaze, daring him to defy him.

  ‘Got a problem wi’ that?’

  Patrick hesitated for only a second longer. Cody’s minions were all around him, waiting for his answer. He tried to sound cool and casual. ‘Who knows better than me what it looked like?’

  And he began to spray in swirls and turns. He was impressed himself by the way he could capture a picture. The others watched him in admiration for a moment then they took out their cans and began to spray too, but to Patrick they were just vandals. He, however, was an artist. So, it wasn’t too bad what he was doing, was it?

  But when he began to paint the figure falling, his hand froze, he felt his whole body go cold. He couldn’t go on.

  Cody stopped his spraying, watched him. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Patrick took a deep breath. ‘I’m an artist, Cody. Gotta get it right, you know?’

  Cody laughed. So did Patrick. But he felt cold inside as he finished the picture, drew the man, his arms wide, sailing through the air, going down. He stepped back. It was good, yet he felt that something was missing. Something that should be there, and he couldn’t quite remember what that something was.

  ‘Fantastic!’ Cody bowed in front of him. ‘You’re a master, Patrick. A master.’

  The other boys howled their appreciation. Patrick felt good. Couldn’t help it. Who else gave him compliments like this?

  ‘Come on,’ he said, taking charge for once. ‘We better go. We’ll get caught in a minute.’

  Cody held him back. ‘Just one more thing, the finishing touch.’ Cody bent to the bottom of the wall, began spraying again. Patrick stiffened. He was going to spoil his work. Then Cody took a step back. He was laughing.

  ‘There!’ he said. ‘Now it’s perfect.’

  And Patrick saw what he had added, and his blood ran cold.

  Too bad it was only one

  The other boys laughed. Patrick didn’t. ‘Bad idea, Cody. That’ll cause trouble.’

  That only made Cody laugh louder. ‘Big deal, who cares?’

  There was a sound at the other end of the underpass. Someone was coming. Patrick looked up. A huge black shadow seemed to fill the whole entrance. Cody pushed him. ‘Time to go,’ he said, and he began to run. Patrick took one last look at the painting, at the words written underneath. Yes, they were going to cause trouble.

  And then he ran, following the other boys out back on to the estate.

  Patrick had nightmares that night. His dreams were filled with them. Again and again, he saw that man falling, imagined his face, close against his own, as if Patrick too was falling alongside him in free fall. But they had no parachute.

  ‘I don’t want to die,’ the man was saying. He reached out and grabbed at Patrick’s hands, but he didn’t want to die either and he pulled his hands away and the man was crying and screaming, ‘Help me, please. Help me.’ And he fell past Patrick, and instead of falling, Patrick rose like a bird, rose to the sky so he could see the very top of the tower block. He drew his eyes away from the falling man. So he missed, even in his nightmare, the sight of him hitting the ground.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Did you hear about what was drawn on the underpass?’ Hakim asked Mosi as soon as he stepped through the school gates. Hakim was one of the other asylum seekers, an Iraqi, from Baghdad. A little older than Mosi, he was tough and hard and unafraid. He refused to step back from any fight. Mosi always kept well away from Hakim. Hakim asked again, his voice angrier. ‘The underpass; did you hear what’s been painted in it?’

  Mosi had heard. He’d heard it muttered and whispered in the lift of the tower block, in snatches of conversation as he walked to school. ‘I’ve heard,’ he said.

  ‘They’re out to get us, Mosi. We have to stand up to them. We have to stand together.’

  There were boys behind Hakim, watching for Mosi’s reaction. Waiting for his answer. They despised him. Mosi knew that. He didn’t care. His answer was softly spoken, but firm. ‘Better let it pass.’

  Hakim’s eyes flashed in anger. ‘Let it pass?’ He turned to his friends, no, not friends, they were for the most part, afraid to go against Hakim. ‘Do you hear this dog?’

  They all began muttering in anger, their fury aimed at Mosi. ‘We’re not going to let them walk over us,’ one of the boys shouted.

  Hakim pushed Mosi in the chest. He stumbled back. ‘There was blood smeared all over that graffiti. I hope that was a message to whoever did it. A warning. Something bad will happen to them.’

  Hakim looked over at Cody and his mates when he said that. Cody stared him down.

  Then Hakim turned his attention back to Mosi. He pushed him again, and this time Mosi almost fell. He only just kept his balance. Still Mosi said nothing. Hakim spat on the ground.
‘Coward!’ he said. He beckoned his gang on with a nod of his head. ‘Come on, leave him be. He’s not worth the trouble.’

  Mosi stood alone. He saw Cody and his mates sniggering at him. Bliss and her friends were watching him with something like pity in their eyes. He hoped she didn’t come over. He wished all of them would just let him alone.

  Patrick could feel the tension in the school. Everyone was talking about the graffiti in the underpass and the words written beneath it. He was sure they all knew it was him who had drawn that falling man, though any talent he had for drawing had never been noticed in school. Yet he was certain they were all watching him, whispering about him, waiting for him to scribble on a notepad, or scratch on a desk. He hoped no one would believe he could have written those awful words.

  He should have stopped Cody doing that. In his mind he had. He had stood up to him, held him back from writing those words. If this had been a movie, that’s what he would have done. But would it have made any difference? Or was the image he had drawn bad enough?

  But the blood? They had had nothing to do with that. It had only made it worse. He remembered the figure in the underpass, that giant black shadow. Had he added the blood? And why would anyone do that?

  ‘Blinkin’ voodoo, that’s what my dad says,’ Cody insisted, and the others, apart from Patrick, all agreed with him.

  It made Patrick sick to think of it. He’d never go out and draw any graffiti again, he promised himself. He shivered, remembering his dreams, his night terrors. He’d hardly slept.

  But a moment later, when Cody had looked across the playground at him, and winked, what had he done? He had winked back.

  Bliss, of course, noticed it. ‘What are you winking at him for?’ She came right up to Patrick. ‘You don’t really want him for a mate, do you?’

  ‘Maybe I just had something in my eye,’ Patrick said coolly.

  ‘You should keep back from him, Patrick,’ she said.