The Other Hand

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 gray 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 dialed 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 favor just by saying those words.
    “Good morning, I would like a taxi please.”
    “You want a cab?”
    “Yes. Please. A taxicab. 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 memorized the address on the United Kingdom Driver’s License in my see-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 thereis 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 nearby. 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 center’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 dialed 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 Mister 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, Mister 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 windup, 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