The Other Hand

“send out a unit, will you? I’ve got one to bring in for fingerprints. Probably a nutter.”
    He turned back to me, and he was not smiling anymore.
    “Wait here,” he said.
    He closed the car door. I sat for a long time. Without the breeze it was very hot in the back of the police car. I waited there until another set of policemen came and took me away. They put me intoa van. I watched Sarah and Lawrence and Charlie disappearing in the back window, through a metal grille. Lawrence had his arm around Sarah, and she was leaning against him.
    Sarah and Lawrence came to visit me that night. I was in a holding cell at the police station in Vauxhall. The police guard, he banged open the door without knocking and Sarah walked in. Sarah was carrying Charlie. He was asleep in her arms with his head resting on her shoulder. I was so happy to see Charlie safe, I cried. I kissed Charlie on the cheek. He twitched in his sleep, and he sighed. Through the holes in his bat mask, I could see that he was smiling in his sleep. That made me smile too.
    Outside the cell, Lawrence was arguing with a police officer.
    “This is a bit excessive, isn’t it? They shouldn’t deport her. She has a home to go to. She has a sponsor.”
    “They’re not my rules, sir. The immigration people are a law unto themselves.”
    “But surely you can give us a bit of time to make a case. I work for the Home Office, I can get an appeal together.”
    “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, if I worked for the Home Office and I knew all along this lady was illegal, I’d keep my mouth shut.”
    And this, exactly, is what Lawrence did. I did not hear his voice after that.
    The guard looked into the cell. “You’ve got five minutes, that’s all,” he said.
    Sarah was crying. “I won’t let them do it,” she whispered. “I’ll find a way. I won’t let them send you back.”
    I tried very hard to smile.
    “Maybe you should not make a fuss. It would not be good for Lawrence, I think.”
    Sarah pressed her face down to the top of Charlie’s head, and she breathed in his smell.
    “Maybe Lawrence is going to have to look after himself,” she whispered.
    I shook my head. “Sarah,” I said. “I do not deserve your help. You do not know everything about me.”
    “I think I know enough.”
    “Please listen, Sarah. I was there when Andrew killed himself.”
    “What?”
    “Yes. And, if I tried harder, I think I could have saved him.”
    There was a long silence between us. The only sound was Charlie breathing in and out in his sleep.
    The guard came into the cell. “Time’s up,” he said. “Come on please madam, we need to lock up for the night.”
    On the concrete floor of the cell I saw a tear splash, and I looked up into Sarah’s face.
    “You know what the worst thing is?” she said. “If I had tried harder, I suppose I could have saved Andrew too.”
    When she went, the cell door closed behind her with a noise like the boom of thunder on the first day of the rainy season.
    They came for me at four o’clock in the morning. There were three uniformed immigration officers, one woman and two men. I heard their shoes banging on the linoleum of the corridor. I had been awake all night, waiting for them. I was still wearing the summer dress that Sarah had given me, with the pretty lace around the neck. I stood up, so I was waiting for them when they banged open the door. We walked out of the cell. The door closed behind me. Boom, went the door, and that was it. Out in the street it was raining. They put me in the back of a van. The road was wet and the headlights pushed streaks of light along it. One of the back windows was half open. The back of the van had a smell of vomit, but the air that blew in smelled of London. All along the streets the windows of the apartments were silent and blind, with their curtains closed. I disappeared without anyone to see me go. The female officer handcuffed me to the back of the seat in front.
    “It is not necessary to handcuff me,” I said. “How could I run away?”
    The female officer looked back at me. She was surprised.
    “You speak pretty good English,” she said. “Most of the people we bring in don’t speak a word.”
    “I thought if I learned to speak like you people do, I would be able to stay.”
    The officer smiled.
    “It doesn’t matter how you talk, does it?” she said. “You’re a drain on resources. The point is you don’t belong here.”
    The van turned the corner at