Ah, reason not the need!
King Lear doesn’t need a car either.Shut up.I’m trying towork.
The casewas a tough one.Sasha scanned the file, thoughtfully tapping theend of his beautiful Faber pen—a birthday gift from Laurie—againstthe desk.Yosiri Cuza ran a grocery store in South Norwood.He waskindly, well liked, respected by his neighbours.He worked all thehours God sent.He was also illegal, having come in with a batch ofBucharest refugees, and for some reason—ignorance, maybe, or fearof rocking the boat—had failed to finalise his registration.Someone had reported him, and he, Mrs Cuza and their three smallchildren were scheduled for deportation next month.The conflicthe’d fled from was over.Cuza would probably not be killed for hispolitical views upon his return: only marginalised, kept from anychance of finding work, driven deeper and deeper into poverty untilhis voice was silenced.
It washis own fault.All he’d had to do was fill out the paperwork.Sasharespected the laws of his country of adoption, and he couldn’t helpeveryone.He turned the pages of the file.He looked at thephotographs of Yosiri Cuza and his wife upon their arrival, upagainst a wall in an interview room at Heathrow.Blank-faced withtrauma, the flash bouncing off untold depths in their eyes.Not aword of English, the report noted, and no interpreter available fortheir dialect.They’d slipped away somewhere between the airportand the detention centre.The system had lost sight of them afterthat.
Yes,Sasha respected UK law.He couldn’t do otherwise, having thrived byits mercy, found work and a home beneath its wing.A BritishInterpol agent, John Kucharski, had been instrumental in gettinghim legal, finding him the training he needed for this job he lovedso much.The UK authorities were sometimes incompetent, sometimescruel, always desperately overloaded.Just occasionally they weregraced by men like Kucharski, who shone such a light that Sasha hadvowed to take his example of the system at its best and workaccordingly.
To dohis best to rectify mistakes.He tapped the pen again, then ran itstip down the list of witness names.Here were the good citizenswho’d decided to inform on Mr Cuza for the benefit of thecommunity.Unimpeachable characters all of them, not evenrequesting anonymity.One name rang the faintest bell, a delicateRoma wind-chime, in Sasha’s head.He sat back, letting details ofthe dozens of cases he’d dealt with in the past year scroll throughhis mind.He had a good retentive memory, helping to make up forhis years of missed education.Pearson, Colin Pearson...A solidEnglish name.Nothing to attract notice, except that—yes—it hadcropped up in three other deportation trials.Very keen andobservant, Mr Pearson.He belonged to the UK Independent Party.Nothing wrong with that, except that Sasha’s network of travellerfriends had told him to look out for them.That their right-wingmembers often cropped up at BNP rallies, heart-shaped Union Jacksheld high.Banners informing anyone who’d glance their way thatBritain was full up...
Distasteful, but not enough.Sasha frowned.There was more.Kucharski had been very open with him.He’d made sure that none ofthe thugs who’d raided the Birchwood Romani camp had been able tohide behind Sir William Fitzroy’s police-commission shield.Kucharski had shown Sasha names, partly to forward his owninvestigation, partly to help Sasha understand why and how MamaLuna had died.
ColinPearson—not unimpeachable at all.A bigot with a history of violentattacks upon immigrants.The legal aspects of deportation didn’tfall within Sasha’s remit, but he knew Cuza’s lawyer.A quiet chatover coffee was all it would take.
Thewisteria shadows shifted hypnotically over the file, making thewords drift and dance.Sasha had been free of nightmares for thethree nights since Saturday, but he’d slept badly.He yawned.Olivia popped out of her office to say sorry for making him wait,an apologetic cuckoo from a clock.Once more Sasha gestured to hernot to worry.Laurie texted again.His tub was stuck at Earl’sCourt now.If they had a car, Laurie pointed out, they could rundown to Rye at the weekends, or Brighton or the NewForest.
Sashasat back and let the shadows caress him.No need to tell Laurieabout Pearson.Laurie would listen to Sasha on the subject of hiswork for as long as he wanted to talk, lost in admiration foranyone who had a proper job.But Mama Luna’s death weighed onLaurie as if Sir William’s actions had been his own, and this wasonly a coincidence.A useful one which might bring Pearson’smotivations into question, and make the prosecution look twice attheir other witnesses as well...
This wasgood.Sasha felt as if he could rest now: the case had beenbothering him.He closed his eyes.
When heopened them, he was on the floor.His upturned coffee cup washalfway across the room.A long streak of coffee stained the palecarpet, stark as blood.His lungs were filling and emptying likeash-clogged bellows and he was making noises, alien moans or sobsthat seemed to come from the pit of his gut.He stopped them withan effort.His paperwork was scattered all around him.
Lauriewas there.Dr Matthews too—one of them on each side of him, bothlooking distraught.Laurie was on his knees, the waiting-room dooropen as if he’d just arrived in a whirlwind and skidded to a halt.Poor Olivia was leaning over him, breaking her no-contact rules topat him gingerly on the head.
Lauriehad no rules.Sasha scrabbled backward and was caught.He twistedround, burying his face in the dear familiar dark.There was a deadbaby, flaring fires, an old woman dying in his arms.He retched insilent horror and fought not to vomit on Laurie’s beautifulshirt.
Laurieheld him tight.“God almighty, Olivia.What happened?”
“I don’t know.I was late.I was just finishing up with my lastappointment and I heard a crash.Is this what his nightmares looklike?”
“Yes, sometimes.But he’s never had one during the day likethis before.”
Thefires died.Sasha became fully aware of the two kind, innocent,well-intentioned people he was scaring so badly for no good reason.He lifted his head.“Laurie.Dr Matthews...I’m sosorry.”
Lauriestroked his face.“Don’t be daft.”
“Weren’t you at South Ken?Stuck in a Tub?”
Oliviafrowned.“Oh, dear.Is he often confused afterwards?”
“No, no.That was just me—I spelled a text to him wrong.Thatwas twenty minutes ago, love.I came as fast as I could, and Iheard you yelling from halfway down the corridor, and...there youwere.”
Here I am.In sunlight, surrounded by wealth and byfriends.Mortified, Sasha got up, Lauriesteadying him.“Sorry,” he said again.“God, what a mess.Thecarpet...”
“Don’t worry about that.”Olivia was gathering up Sasha’spapers, tucking them back into his satchel.“Now I can ask for anew one.At least you managed to miss most of your files.Come oninto my office now.”
You could get the carpet cleaned,Sasha reflected dazedly, following her.Two hundred square feet,thick-piled, it would sort out the floors of five Romani travellervans at least.Now it would end up in the landfill skip on a dumpsite whose beady-eyed CCTV cams forbade even that much benignpilfering.Olivia was a nice woman—liberal, concerned for the poor.It was just that she lived in a world—Sasha’s world too now—wheresuch thoughts need never occur.
***
“So, Sasha—do you think it likely that, when you have thesedreams, your mind is attempting to redress the balance between thepoverty in which you used to live and your relatively comfortablecircumstances now?”
Sashahid a smile.Olivia was a good shrink—perfect, he imagined, forMarielle Fitzroy—and she’d certainly nailed some of his wakingthoughts.“Perhaps.”
“Well, that’s not uncommon.Do you think we might ascribe it toa kind of survivor syndrome, a conviction of inherent unworthiness,despite your work with the Guidance Council and everything else youdo to assist new immigrants now?”
Sashamet and held her sincere grey eyes.She led very well from therear.Never told him what to think, but offered him good solidreasons for thinking as she did.Laurie liked her too.As usual,he’d asked Sasha if he’d prefer to go in on his own, and Sasha asusual had asked him to stay.He kept well in the background, butSasha could feel his relief at this latest suggestion.He wasalways more cheerful after these sessions, and so Sasha kept goingalong, glad enough to take on Olivia’s rationalisations and walkhome with Laurie in the light.
