With special thanks to Jeanne Coker, Faz Fazeli, Michaela
Fyson, David Holman, Tarek Khlat and Andrew Newton
for their support of this book
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To all those children in need of
a safe country to call home
Lucy Popescu
Introduction
Brian Conaghanh
Just Another Someone
Bali Rai
The Mermaid
Christine Pullein-Thompson
I Want the Truth
Tony Bradman
Words
Anna Perera
Gowsika Auntie
Lucy Popescu
What Is Flash Fiction?
Kit de Waal
Did You See Me?
Sue Reid
Our Bridge to Freedom
Michael Morpurgo
The Little Red Train
Moniza Alvi
The Camp
Tracy Brabin
Dawn Raiders
Hassan Abdulrazzak
The Good Girl in the All-Terrain Boots
Moniza Alvi
Exile
Jon Walter
Every Day Is Christmas…
Fiona Dunbar
#owned
Peter Kalu
Sana the Referee
Michael Morpurgo
Locked Up
Lucy Popescu
Interview with Judith Kerr
Eoin Colfer
Christopher
Brian Conaghan
Have You Seen Me?
Sita Brahmachari
Amir and George
Patrice Lawrence
The Dancer
Miriam Halahmy
The Memory Box
Lucy Popescu
Finding a Voice
David Almond
Dark Star
S. F. Said
The Big Questions
S. F. Said
Alien
Adam Barnard
Learning to Laugh Again
Simon Armitage
On the Existing State of Things
Biographies
What You Can Do & Who to Support
Acknowledgements
Supporters
Copyright
People have moved across land and sea for thousands of years whether in search of food or to trade. Over time, the reasons for migration have evolved. War, cultural or religious persecution, drought and famine are just some of the reasons people flee their native lands to reach safety. Then and now. The survival instinct is strong in us all. It is part of life.
Just imagine if you were forced to leave your home, family and friends, to learn new customs, eat different food, adapt to a harsh climate, speak a foreign language. You’re on your own. There may not be a school willing to take you or, if there is, you are told that you are not allowed to study. You live in cramped quarters and have limited food. Or you don’t have accommodation, have to sleep rough and beg for food. People shout at you in a language you don’t understand and offer little in the way of sympathy. You would be desperate to return home, to everything that is familiar, as soon as you possibly could.
Over half of the world’s refugees are children. Many arrive on our shores utterly alone. Some don’t make it. Remember that image of Alan Kurdi, the small Syrian boy, just a toddler? His tiny body, face down, washed up on a Turkish beach? The photograph was reproduced worldwide and helped temper the negative media for a short while. It was this image that made me think of putting together an anthology that explores the reality for child refugees and unaccompanied young adults making these harrowing journeys in search of safety. Some of our finest children’s writers have contributed stories, poems and flash fiction exploring the reasons people have to flee their homelands, the risks they take travelling in the backs of lorries, the terrifying sea voyages they endure, their arrival and assimilation in a new country, and the harsh confinement of some young asylum seekers in camps and detention centres. Many contributions expose prejudice; others celebrate the incredible fortitude of child refugees, their hopes and aspirations. The image of Alan Kurdi changed hearts and minds and I hope this book will too.
The plight of young refugees is nothing new. Sue Reid and my late mother, Christine Pullein-Thompson, have written historical pieces about crossing borders during periods of turmoil in Eastern Europe. My mum’s piece is set just before the Romanian revolution in 1989. It is about a young boy who has to choose between living without fear in Britain or remaining in his repressive native country in order to look after his frail grandmother. Refugees suffer terrible hardship when they are forced to leave their homes and families and are often desperate to return as soon as the situation in their country has improved. Sue’s story takes us back to Hungary in 1956, when the revolution was crushed by the Soviets. Sue was fascinated to learn that children were among those who fought the Soviet tanks. Her story reminds us of a time when refugees, in spite of the huge number that escaped, were made very welcome by the West and countries elsewhere.
Bali Rai writes about a young Syrian orphan’s petrifying journey by boat. Anna Perera imagines what it is like to be a Sri Lankan child in the middle of a war zone. Michael Morpurgo describes the flight of an Afghan boy and his mother who are smuggled across countries in the back of a lorry. As these pieces prove, there have always been people in need of safety – it’s just the geography, government or conflict zone that changes. That’s why I’ve included an interview with the wonderful children’s writer and illustrator Judith Kerr, who escaped from Hitler’s Germany with her parents and brother in 1933 when she was nine years old and has been writing children’s books since the 1960s. Brian Conaghan makes this connection in his eloquent poem which opens the anthology, told from the points of view of a Polish and a Syrian refugee. And Simon Armitage underlines the timelessness and circular nature of displacement in his powerful poem which closes the anthology.
Moniza Alvi writes from personal experience about her family’s flight after the partition of India and Pakistan, but in her poem ‘Exile’ she writes about refugees from Sarajevo. Kit de Waal has written a piece of flash fiction inspired by the same photograph of Alan Kurdi that moved me. Some contributors – David Almond, Sita Brahmachari, Fiona Dunbar and Miriam Halahmy – imagine what it is like to be a young refugee adapting to life in a foreign country. Peter Kalu writes from the perspective of an asylum seeker working in a kitchen and living in limbo. When you have no rights, no benefits and no ability to earn money legally, inevitably grey areas open up. It is easy to exploit those desperate for employment, as Eoin Colfer’s short story about young factory workers demonstrates. Tracy Brabin explores what it is like to have your home raided at dawn by immigration officers and, together with Michael Morpurgo, writes of children imprisoned in the UK’s Yarl’s Wood detention centre, while Jon Walter explores the reality for children marking their days in an Australian detention centre on Christmas Island. Britain and Australia both employ the cruel policy of indefinitely detaining asylum seekers while their applications are processed or they await the result of an appeal. This means that those seeking refuge can be incarcerated for months or even years. Asylum seekers are often referred to as ‘aliens’, and S. F. Said examines this in his wonderful sci-fi story, an extract from his latest novel, Phoenix.
It’s not all doom and gloom. Hassan Abdulrazzak has written a touching love story between a Syrian boy, a Mexican girl and a rescue dog called Frida. Adam Barnard has contributed a compelling article about a therapeutic activity holiday where teenage refugees learn to laugh again. Tony Bradman offers an uplifting message at the end of his poem, ‘Words’, and Patrice Lawrence and I write about finding solace in music.
I hope that A Country to Call Home will build on the success of A Country of Refuge, my previous anthology about asylum seekers and migration featuring the work of celebrated British and Irish writers, and gain new readers. I’m delighted that many of the contributors to A Country to Call Home portray experiences that are so different from their own lives. When we start to consider what it must be like to flee our home and arrive in another country, without friends or family, we can better sympathise with those people for whom this is a reality. They are just like us, but circumstances in their own country have proved intolerable. Empathy engenders change. If we can’t put ourselves in others’ shoes, we lead narrower lives. We are richer for recognising and celebrating our similarities and our differences. I hope after reading the anthology that you will want to show your support for young refugees and asylum seekers the world over, and extend the hand of friendship to all those struggling to find somewhere safe to call home.
Lucy Popescu
January 2018
There goes my home:
My play, my school, my heart smiles
The trees we climbed
Sea we swam
Place that tells me I was once a child.
There goes my home:
My everything, my canvas, my first kiss
Waiting until Mama and Papa
Fell asleep
To run, find, feel his lips.
There goes my home:
My voice, my faith, my inner safe
The hunger shared
A future craved
Across the horizon we gazed, we waved.
There goes my home:
My hope, my peace, my dream desire
Ears on tales
From wrinkled tongues
The tastes, the scents, the foreign guns.
We could no longer remain.
We could no longer remain.
They squeezed us onto
A boat.
They squeezed us onto
A train.
A bend in the moon
Guides our rust rig and fear
We hold on for dear life anew
In pitch-black
With only yellow eyes in view.
I closed my face
To pray the cries and howls away
We moved
To the rhythm of the rail
Mothers, fathers, the young, the [verse] old.
Terrified.
In terror.
Through dawn’s tears and mist
They float past
Like driftwood.
Too many orphaned
Or widowed
Or wish to be.
We arrived
I lost Papa’s hand…
Scraped my feet
And gripped the earth of my land.
I am the same as you.
We are the same.
I have a mother.
I have a father.
I have love.
I have love.
I surrender myself to memories.
All I have is memories.
We arrive
With a new title: refugee.
Legions of kindness battle
With those of cruelty
Spits with embraces
We are nobody in no place.
We are nobody in no place
Branded under foreign flag
Without art
Beauty
Humanity
A life suppressed.
Let’s make the best of it.
Let’s try to make it.
One day I might return
To my play, my school, my heart smiles
When things will
Be changed.
I fantasised of returning
To that first kiss
His lips
His skin
My everything.
When I will kiss my sisters.
Breathe Mama and Papa.
Inhale the sea, hug the horizon.
Touch joy at the tales being sung.
Sleep again.
Feel again.
Smell again.
Laugh again.
Rid myself of this loneliness.
Allow my heart to bite.
Cycle.
Paint.
Sing.
Run.
Be recognised…
Be recognised…
My name is Nizar Qabbani
Sixteen, orphan, refugee.
I fled Syria.
My name is Hanna Yellen
Artist, orphan, refugee.
I fled Poland.
In 2017
In 1939
I am someone.
I am someone.
‘Are you OK?’
The woman was blonde; the tallest I had ever seen. She stooped to bring her face level with mine.
‘You speak Danish?’
‘Some,’ I replied.
‘English? ’
‘More.’
She sat beside me, her skin pink with cold.
‘It’s freezing out here,’ she said in English. ‘Where is your coat, your scarf?’
‘I left them…’
‘At home?’
‘I live with my uncle’s family,’ I told her. ‘It is not the same thing.’
The woman removed her lilac scarf and wrapped it around my neck.
‘How did you get here?’ she asked.
‘I walked – from Nørrebro…’
I pointed to the little statue sitting on its rock at the harbour shore. I had been careful not to get too close to the water.
‘I am like her,’ I added. ‘A mermaid, far from home…’
She seemed confused.
‘I am Bettina,’ she told me. ‘Would you like some coffee? Food, perhaps?’
My stomach growled and Bettina smiled.
‘I heard that,’ she said.
She stood and held out her hand.
‘Come, little mermaid,’ she said. ‘There are no princes here today.’
A single tear rolled down my right cheek.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘No princes…’
Papa looked forlorn.
‘Whatever happens, keep hold of my hand,’ he whispered in English. ‘You must not let go, no matter what.’
I nodded.
‘Yes, Papa,’ I told him. ‘I will not let go.’
The beach was crowded with others just like us, and all were anxious. I had no idea of the time, because it meant nothing at all. All that mattered was moving forward, reaching our next goal. Leaving what came before, further and further behind, no matter the pain, no matter the cost.
Three smugglers stood guard over us, carrying guns and torches. A fourth separated us into groups. A woman held her infant daughter to her breast. The wailing child was swaddled in a ragged blanket, over which plastic bags had been wrapped.
‘Please!’ the woman sobbed. ‘My daughter is cold. How long must we wait?’
She had travelled with us since Beirut, and my heart ached for her.
‘Papa – can we give her some clothes?’ I asked, even though I knew we could not.
Papa shook his head, his eyes watering.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I am sorry.’
We had nothing ourselves, yet still the guilt gnawed at me. I fought back my own tears. Papa had told me to be strong, to think of Mama and my little sister, Sana. I did that now, as the wind whipped around us and the temperature continued to fall. It did not help.
A young man asked which language we were speaking. Papa did not answer. He had been an English teacher in Damascus, and taught my sister and me from childhood. Since leaving our home, we had conversed in Arabic only when necessary.
‘Speaking English will allow us some privacy,’ he’d told me. ‘We can trust no one.’
One of the smugglers flashed his light three times.
‘The boats are coming!’ said another.
The fishing trawler was overcrowded and I could not move. Papa held me in his arms, both of us still soaked from the short trip from the beach to the boat. The smugglers had rowed us out on rubber dinghies before forcing us aboard the larger vessel. Now, as the wind grew steadily worse, we rocked and swayed in the open, in almost darkness.
Before this, I had always loved the sea. Each summer, Papa would pack Sana and me into the car as Mama fussed over food and clothes. He would drive us across the border into Lebanon, to visit with friends in Sidon, right on the Mediterranean. We would visit the sea castle, and eat ice creams by the fountain in Nejmeh Square, or spend entire days at the public beach. As Sana giggled and splashed about in the water, I would close my eyes and dream of mermaids, just like Ariel in my most-treasured DVD…
I awoke suddenly to shouting and barked orders. I do not know how long I had slept, nor did it matter. Sleep without peace was useless. Yet, it was all I had known since we’d fled our home.
‘What is happening, Papa?’
‘The smugglers are panicking,’ he whispered. ‘They’ve spotted a patrol boat.’
‘Patrol…?’
Papa nodded.
‘They look for smugglers,’ he explained. ‘If the smugglers are caught with us, they will go to jail and we will be returned to—’
‘But—’
‘Ssh!’ said Papa. ‘Stay alert, my daughter.’
He turned to another man and spoke in Arabic. The man seemed to agree with Papa, and the two of them pulled other men closer. Soon all were discussing something in hushed tones.
The smugglers began to shout louder and then I heard a splash. A woman screamed for her husband. When I looked up, the smugglers were pushing more people overboard.
‘PAPA!’ I screamed, as all hell broke loose.
‘Come!’ Papa ordered, holding out his hand.
We followed others towards the stern, where another rubber lifeboat was fastened to the side. The men began to tug at the ropes, hoping to release the knots. One of them produced a knife. More people joined us, including the mother I had watched earlier. She held her baby more tightly than ever.
‘What is happening?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I told her. ‘But stay close to Papa and me. Make sure you follow—’
A gunshot drowned out my words. Ten feet away, a teenage boy screamed and clutched at his chest, his fingers bloody.
‘GET AWAY FROM THE LIFEBOAT, YOU FILTHY DOGS!’
More gunshots followed, and another man fell dead before my eyes.
‘GET AWAY!’
But Papa and the others ignored the warnings. As the boat began to sway uneasily, I took hold of the woman and pulled her closer. Papa turned and pointed to the sea.
‘When the lifeboat drops, jump!’ he shouted. ‘Do not think, do not look back – just go!’
‘But Papa, I—’
Papa took my face in his hands.
‘I will protect you,’ he said. ‘I promise, Nadia…’
The fishing boat creaked and rocked, as more people scrambled towards the stern. The smugglers opened fire again, and then I heard a wrenching sound. The rubber dinghy dropped to the water and began to bounce ferociously.
‘NOW!’ yelled Papa.
I turned to the woman.
‘I will go first,’ I told her in Arabic. ‘Throw your baby down to me when I am safe.’
The woman’s face grew pale. She shook her head over and over again.
‘PLEASE, NADIA!’ I heard Papa cry out.
Those closest to us began to jump.
‘We have no other choice!’ I told the woman.
There was no time left. I had to jump too. I held my breath and waited for the yellow dinghy to bob closer to the boat.
‘GO!’ screamed Papa.
I fell dead centre, onto my face. Someone pulled me aside as another person landed nearby. Still others threw orange life jackets from the deck. Then I saw Papa jump. But the dinghy lurched and he fell into the black water.
‘PAPA!’ I screamed.
Above me, the woman and her daughter appeared. Only, she did not jump. Instead, her back arched, pushing her midriff forward at an unnatural angle. Blood sprayed from her chest and both she and her daughter fell.
‘NO!!!!’ I cried, but there was nothing I could do.
Pandemonium reigned. People were still jumping, and those already aboard attempted to row away. Body after body fell into the water, and there was no sign of Papa. The lifeboat began to tip as those in the sea tried to scramble on. I felt my heart thumping within my chest. My legs felt hollow and I began to tumble. Just before I entered the sea, I took hold of a life jacket. I gasped as my head went under and I swallowed salty water. But I kicked my legs and quickly broke the surface, sucking in precious air, trying not to choke.
Then I felt Papa’s hand on my shoulder…
I will never know how long we floated in the cold and the darkness. I will only ever remember Papa holding me close, begging me to stay awake. I was so tired, so empty, but he did not give up on me.
‘Remember the film,’ he whispered. ‘Remember the stories we made up. You are Ariel and this water is your kingdom. I will save you, just like the prince in our stories, Nadia. Soon you will reach the shore…’
He pushed me up and took my weight too. Even though I wore the life jacket and not him. I heard screaming and yelling, and saw people begin to lose hope. Many gave up and, when next we looked, they were gone. Bodies floated past us, young and old, male and female, but still Papa kept us alive.
‘Papa,’ I told him. ‘You cannot hold me much longer. Let me go – I can support myself.’
‘No, Nadia!’ he insisted. ‘The day your mother and I chose to create you and Sana, we made a pact with Life. To my everlasting shame, I could not save Sana. Now my job is to protect you, care for you…’
His teeth chattered and he had to force the words out.
‘It’s too late for Mama and Sana,’ he said. ‘But they did not die in vain. For them, we will survive. For them, we will rebuild…’
I shook my head as another dead human being floated past us. What had become of us, of our world? Did our lives really mean so little? I did not want to die this way. This was not the Life I had envisaged. This was not the story I had written for myself. This was not the mermaid I had hoped to become…
When, at last, we heard the boats, Papa whispered the words that will forever live within my shattered heart: ‘Hush now, little mermaid, your saviours are coming…’
‘Our saviours, Papa,’ I said.
Papa tried to smile, but there was no strength left inside him. Whatever energy he had, he’d used to keep us alive. He spat water and began to cry.
‘Hush, Papa,’ I told him. ‘We will soon be saved.’
I heard the remaining survivors calling out to God, praising his name. I did not join them. What little faith I had was lost.
‘Remember the good times,’ Papa said to me, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. ‘Do not ever forget them. No matter where you go, I will always be with you…’
I felt his grip loosen and I screamed, ‘PAPA! PAPA!’
A small lifeboat approached us, its lights cutting through the gloom. The soldiers wore orange life jackets like mine and spoke a language I did not understand.
‘Papa!’ I shouted. ‘We are saved!’
Papa opened his weary eyes. He shivered and convulsed, struggling to keep his head above water.
‘I am sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I cannot go on. Go, little mermaid. Go and be safe…’
He pushed me towards the oncoming boat. Strong hands took hold of me, lifting me to safety.
‘PAPA!’
He looked to me one last time, with such love and such sadness. And then he was gone.
Bettina wiped away tears. The coffee shop was packed and warm, the windows steamed over. People discussed friends and life, work and children.
‘Oh, Nadia,’ said Bettina. ‘I don’t know what to say…’
‘There is nothing to say,’ I replied. ‘I am no one. I have become nobody. I have no voice, no life, no hope…’
‘But you are safe here,’ Bettina told me.
‘My uncle and his family have been kind,’ I replied. ‘But I am lost too.’
‘You went to the harbour to remember your papa?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Today would have been Papa’s birthday. I wanted to wish him well.’
‘And you?’ asked Bettina. ‘How old are you?’
‘Fourteen,’ I told her.
‘Perhaps one day, you will go home,’ she said, taking hold of my hand across the table.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I am just like the mermaid by the harbour. Stranded far from home. Forever.’
Ion had reached the border. He stood behind a long line of lorries. His own country lay beyond. He could see wooded hills, the dim outline of mountains, acres of yellow stubble, one-storey houses built out of mud bricks; the long straight road to home. He felt like a moth beating against a window, trying to get into a lighted room. The ploughed land was being raked by a slow-moving peasant. The soldiers were in their watch towers. They looked harmless enough, but were certainly ready to kill. He looked at the lorries and knew that they were his only hope. If only he could get inside one and conceal himself. But most of them were State-owned container lorries. There was no way of getting inside them and no room underneath to hide either. There were hardly any cars yet. It was too early for visitors with the dew still wet on the grass. He sat down on the verge and waited. The drivers chatted and smoked, waiting their turn. He could hear laughter coming from the soldiers. Suppose they were the same ones as were there yesterday? Suppose they recognised him?
The lorries moved on, leaving him alone on the verge. The grass was blackened by petrol fumes and diesel oil. Only a hundred metres away, a small girl was watching a flock of geese. What would they do if they caught him? The thought made him tremble. He must not think of it. He would not be caught. There was a lorry parked near him now full of sacks. He could climb inside and hide. The driver had disappeared in the direction of the frontier, leaving the engine running. For a moment Ion’s legs refused to move. Then he bounded across the road and clambered into the lorry. The sacks were empty and smelled of maize. He pulled some over his head and lay down, afraid to breathe. Presently the driver came back laughing. They were all like that, Ion decided, always laughing because they felt so important driving their big trucks, passing the slow-moving oxen, nearly running down old ladies, hooting loudly all the time, frightening horses, leaving a trail of petrol fumes behind them. The lorry was moving now. Ion curled up tightly, his fists clenched so that the whites of his knuckles showed. He felt the lorry stop again. Obviously they were through the first barrier, but still on the wrong side. The soldiers were quick. They laughed and made cheerful remarks and then the lorry moved on, and now the soldiers spoke Ion’s language.
‘What have you got inside?’ they asked, letting down the tailboard. ‘How long have you been away?’
Ion held his breath until he felt he would burst.
‘Why don’t you fold the sacks neatly? Anything could hide under that heap,’ asked a soldier.
Ion heard him scrambling into the lorry.
‘What should I want to bring in?’ asked the driver. ‘I’m a poor man.’
‘Spies from the West. Records… anything…’ He touched Ion’s legs. ‘And there is something here,’ he said. ‘I was right. I have a feeling for such things. As soon as I saw this truck I knew it contained contraband goods.’
‘A boy!’
‘The driver knew nothing about me. It is not his fault, please, sir,’ said Ion.
‘You’d better come inside,’ said the soldier. ‘You too, driver.’
‘I didn’t know. I swear to God I didn’t know,’ replied the driver, who was a thin man with very little hair and high cheekbones, a man who looked as though he had worked himself to a shadow. Ion was sorry for him. Perhaps he had a family waiting for him at home. The soldiers might shoot him. And it is all my fault, thought Ion.
‘You come from our country,’ said the soldier with a cap. ‘Sit down. What were you doing on the other side?’
Ion was silent for a moment. He knew he must be very careful. He was sitting in an office now, facing an officer who had a moustache and strong hands and didn’t smile, though his mouth was full of teeth.
‘I crossed by mistake yesterday. I had a lift in a cart pulled by oxen. I fell asleep.’
The officer consulted a list. ‘No cart pulled by oxen crossed yesterday,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t here. It was somewhere else. It wasn’t a big crossing, I woke up and got out and found myself lost,’ said Ion desperately. ‘Truly, sir.’
‘Get on the phone and check up. Find out if any oxen pulling a wagon crossed anywhere.’
A girl in uniform picked up a telephone receiver. She was quite young and very pretty. Ion would have liked her for a sister.
‘You slept then?’ said the officer.
Ion nodded. Another man was questioning the driver, who had not been allowed to sit down. There were beads of sweat on the driver’s face. He kept repeating, ‘I had no idea.’
‘Your name, please,’ asked the soldier. ‘And your address.’
Ion gave his real name and the name of his village.
‘Check that,’ the officer told the girl. ‘See if it exists. And get on to headquarters.’
Ion wondered when they would start to torture him. Nothing would make him tell them about Uncle Fanel. He would stick to his first story. He would not change a single word. He was trembling now. The girl talked to the officer in a low voice. Then she fetched him some biscuits and a cup of coffee. Ion could not look at the biscuits. They made him want to cry.
The lorry driver was still standing. It was very hot in the building. A queue of cars waited outside. The officer nibbled a biscuit.
‘How are your relations from England? Did they enjoy their stay with you?’ he asked presently. ‘Are you sorry they have gone with their four beautiful children?’
‘Yes, sir. I liked them a lot. They were very cheerful and loved our beautiful land.’
‘You must have crossed with them yesterday, but how?’ asked the officer, passing him a biscuit.
‘I wandered across. Really. I got in the boot when they weren’t looking. They were very, very angry, sir.’
‘And they threw you out?’
‘They told me to go back.’
‘If they had been civilised, they would have brought you back and explained everything.’
‘They were in a hurry.’
‘First the oxen, then the boot. When are you going to tell the truth?’
In a minute he will torture me, thought Ion. Please, God, help me. Tell me what to say. Someone help me. Grandpa, if you’re in heaven, tell me. Mother, please speak now. The biscuit had turned to sawdust in his mouth.
‘It is all lies,’ said the officer wearily. ‘If you were escaping to the West, why did you come back?’
‘I wasn’t. I’m returning home to look after my grandmother. She’s very old. I just wanted a ride to the border. I wanted to see what was on the other side.’
‘I want the truth,’ shouted the officer, banging the table so hard that the coffee jumped out of his cup.
Ion’s hand started to shake.
‘They were trying to get you out. Admit it.’
‘No.’
‘You’re doing no good,’ said the girl. ‘You are only frightening the boy. Let me talk to him. He will tell me everything.’
She beckoned to Ion. ‘Come and have a wash and some coffee. I have a brother the image of you.’
The driver had disappeared, but his lorry was still parked outside. Ion followed the girl into a room at the back of the building. She fetched him towels and soap. She had fair hair and soft brown eyes. ‘I want to help you,’ she said. ‘You will let me, won’t you?’