No Place of Safety (9 page)

When he had gone, Dickie Mavors, who was never backward in self-congratulation, awarded himself a double measure, and a malt Scotch to boot.

 • • • 

Charlie was round at the refuge less than half an hour after their phone call. He greeted Alan and Katy as old friends, and they introduced him to Ben and Mehjabean. Sparks of fellow-feeling flashed between him and her – two strong, resilient, satiric spirits. But then Charlie sat at his ease in one of the old armchairs and let them tell him the whole story in their own way. Mehjabean's account of the pressure put on her was restrained, but the strength of her feeling showed through. At the end Charlie sat thoughtful for a minute or two.

‘I'm not going to pretend it's an easy matter,' he said at last. ‘We're into all sorts of grey areas here – and not offending the “ethnic minorities” is just one of them.' He turned to Midge. ‘Don't you just love being an ethnic minority?'

‘I'd hate to be a boring old majority,' she said. ‘Though I hate being lumped together with everyone like me, like when people talk about “Pakistani women”, as if we were all alike.'

‘Well, at least no one assumes you're a potential mugger,' countered Charlie. ‘Anyway, I'm not disguising it would be
easier if you were a bit older, if you were white or Afro-Caribbean, and so on. There's definitely a limit to what we can do.'

‘The first thing you can do is register the problem – register the situation,' said Ben.

‘I do, I do. And I'll pass the information on.'

‘We're just terrified that she'll be . . . like,
taken
,' said Katy. Charlie nodded.

‘I can see you must be. At least you can get straight through to me if that happens . . . Somehow I don't see her as being easily taken,' he added, and the spark flew between them.

‘I won't,' said Midge.

‘On the other hand, her father is forceful and strong,' put in Ben. ‘Like I said, I had to use karate on him to get her away. And with other family members to help . . .'

‘Of course – I wasn't suggesting you should relax for one moment. I agree with all your solicitor's advice, but the fact that you've got people coming and going all the time here can't make things easy.'

‘We've thought of giving everyone a key with strict instructions – '

‘Keys can be duplicated, and poor people can be bribed,' Charlie pointed out forcefully. ‘People come back here for their mail, don't they?'

‘Yes, and it's an address they give the DSS.'

‘Do they have keys?'

‘No-o,' said Ben. ‘But some have gone missing, so some of them probably do.'

‘I think for the moment, whenever possible, you should keep the place locked, and have all the residents let in as they come home. Withdraw all keys, and have a chain put up. That means a doorman must be here all the time. Not ideal, but you can explain to them why.'

‘Yes, we can,' said Alan. ‘Most of them are very sympathetic and interested in Midge. We've always had the place open during the day before, but they'll understand.'

‘Right,' said Charlie, getting up. ‘Well, it looks like you have a meal to cook, so I won't keep you.' He turned towards
Ben. ‘Do you think I could have a few words with you alone, sir?'

Ben nodded, and, watched by the other three, they went out to the hall and then in to the dining room. Ben gestured with his hand and they sat at one of the tables already set for supper. Charlie took in the thick, healthy mass of hair, the far-seeing blue eyes, the youthful, almost handsome set of the face. It was easy to see women falling for him – not just fifteen or twenty years ago, but now. What was less easy was fathoming him. The women who had fallen for him did not seem to have been made particularly happy by him.

‘I thought I'd have a word in private,' Charlie explained, ‘because I've heard whispers of a campaign getting under way against this place.'

Ben nodded, confidence undimmed.

‘I've always known it's inevitable. We'll just have to try and give them no handles to hang the campaign on.'

‘That's probably easier said than done. Not all homeless people are angels. I know you try not to take addicts –'

‘Not because we're unsympathetic. We just couldn't handle the problems involved.'

‘But how can you be sure they're not addicts? You'd hardly want to frisk them every time they come in and out, search their rooms morning and night, inspect them for puncture-marks.'

‘No, certainly not,' agreed Ben. ‘But though I've no qualifications or particular experience, I'm not completely naive. I think it would become apparent quite quickly if we had an addict, and then I'd get rid of him, one way or another.'

‘Drugs is the obvious handle, and in fact the neighbours have tried that already, as you know. If the campaign gets nowhere on that, it'll be something else.'

‘We'll face up to it when we know what it is,' said Ben, with serene confidence. He had said he wasn't naive, but Charlie wasn't so sure. He seemed too able to ignore the wickedness of the world and its ways.

‘How did you come to start this place?' he asked.

‘I'd always wanted to do something for the homeless. It's a sore on our society. We're just throwing away our young
people. When I got a biggish win on the National Lottery, I sank it into this place.'

Charlie's antennae which often told him when people were lying did not twitch. Was it because Ben Marchant was telling the truth, he wondered, or because he had a blandness which neutralized those sensitive little indicators?

‘When did you involve your children in what you are doing?' he asked. The googlie did not get beyond Ben's defences.

‘Ah – they told you?'

‘No. I found out.'

‘I didn't decide to involve them. They decided. Working with these young people made me think about myself and my past. I've been pretty thoughtless and irresponsible, especially when I was young. I had this urge to at least get to know my children, and I did a bit of spadework to find out what had happened to their mothers. When I made myself known to them we got on well at once. Naturally they wanted to know what I was doing, and they came here, got interested in it and – well, you know the rest.'

It all sounded so simple, so good. Yet he had charged into two young lives and changed their pattern. Admittedly Katy's was a life whose pattern was unhappy, but Charlie had the impression he would have done the same even if she and her mother were close and devoted. He had made no attempt to contact the mothers before he made himself known to the children. Was he perhaps still ‘pretty thoughtless and irresponsible' as he had described his young self? Was he one of those people who obeyed their whims of the moment, irrespective of consequences? Charlie didn't doubt Ben's good intentions. He was less sure of his good sense.

 • • • 

Alicia Ingram was as unused as Dickie Mavors to finding people of Asian extraction on her front doorstep. Instinctively she switched on the manner she used when she went into a corner shop, a manner she thought of as ‘being nice to them', but one which in fact suggested her usual pity for people whom she regarded as less intelligent than herself,
augmented in such cases by the fact that they were also less English.

‘Yes? Is there anything I can do for you?'

‘Missis Ingram? Your name is given to me by Mr Mavors.'

Once she got past the pronunciation ‘Mavvers', Alicia stiffened. Dickie Mavors was no friend of hers, currently.

‘Oh yes.'

‘It is my daughter. Very bad things happen to her.' Mr Haldalwa thrust his head forward in outrage. ‘She has been taken by man at the refuge in Portland Terrace.'

Alicia relaxed.

‘Oh dear. This sounds serious. You had better come in.'

Randolph was out, so she took him into the sitting room. She wondered whether to offer him a drink, but decided it would probably be against his religion, whatever that was. She could decide later whether he was worth making tea or coffee for.

‘You say your daughter has been taken by the man running the refuge,' she said in her best constituency MP manner. ‘Does that mean she had been sleeping rough?'

‘No, no. Nothing of the kind,' said Razaq Haldalwa, very agitatedly. ‘My daughter is well brought up girl. Excellent education. Doing very well at school. Beautiful girl.'

‘I see. Is she romantically involved with him then? Or helping him with his . . . work?'

‘No. It is not like that . . .' But he seemed to be having great difficulty explaining what it was like. ‘There was trouble – no, not trouble – disagreement at home.'

This Alicia could understand.

‘I see. Teenagers are
always
difficult, aren't they? They think they know everything, when really they know
so
little!'

‘Is true. Is very true.'

‘So, what was this difficulty about?'

‘It was a question of . . . of obedience to her father. To her ‘ole family. Not to set up in opposition to us.'

This began to sound less than promising. Alicia was all for dutiful children (her own, from her first marriage, had on the whole done what their mother pushed them into, if only for a quiet life), but somehow this all had the odour of
something . . . unEnglish, something that would not translate easily into the sort of political terms Alicia needed – something, in short, not easy to make an issue out of.

‘And the matter on which she set herself up in opposition to you all?'

If Mr Haldalwa had had a cloth cap to twist, in the tradition of the working-class lad tongue-tied in the presence of his ‘betters', he looked as if he would have twisted it.

‘Is marriage. Is question of a husband, of opposition to the husband I have chosen for her.'

‘Ah-h-h,' said Mrs Ingram, her spirits falling.

Because if there was one thing unlikely to rally the citizens of Bramsey round a cause it was the sanctity of Asian marriage traditions. Bramsey was white, middle class and permissive, with a fringe that was white, working class and permissive. It was as much as they could do to get their daughters to go through a marriage ceremony at all, let alone force them in their choice of partner. They would have not an ounce of sympathy for Mr Haldalwa in his dilemma. Alicia had a sudden sense that the world of local politics was not a bed of roses, but she squared her shoulders.

‘We must see what we can do,' she said.

The trouble, when it erupted, started with the boy called Mouse. This was the undersized, vicious-looking young man who had been getting more and more difficult each day, and was now nearing the end of his fortnight. His name, obviously, was ironic, and his rat-like nature had become ever more apparent. Mehjabean had seemed to act as some kind of catalyst. Though he occasionally used the word ‘Paki', the problem didn't seem to be mainly racial: he seemed to resent her nice clothes, her loveliness, the fact that she was welcome, admired, almost loved in the refuge. The sight of the others laughing with her, confiding in her, sent him off into spasms of sneering or rage. It was the darkness gazing at light, and not being able to bear the brightness.

Ben took on the job of telling him that when his time was up he wouldn't be welcome at the Centre in future.

‘What the fuck you mean?' demanded Mouse, his face tilted up aggressively at Ben's.

‘I mean you haven't fitted in well here,' said Ben quietly. Mouse's face twisted in derision.

‘Fitted in! Is this the fucking boy scouts, then? Nobody told me I had to fit in.'

‘If this place is to have any future at all,' said Ben, always quiet, ‘it has to have a pleasant atmosphere that young people will want to come into.'

‘
Well
?'

‘Your getting at people the whole time is unhelpful.'

‘Who's getting at people?'

‘You. And there's another thing: we have to be very careful
here at the moment. There are people watching us who are just looking for an excuse to have us closed down. Your sort of unpleasantness can lead to feuds, fights, anything. I'm surprised it hasn't already. People don't like to be niggled, narked the whole time. I'm not going to take the risk. Until I'm quite sure your attitude has changed you won't be welcome back here.'

‘Well, goodbye Mary Poppins,' said Mouse. ‘Pardon me if I fart.' He spat on the threadbare hall carpet and went up to his little bedroom in the attic, where he proved his attitude had not changed by scrawling graffiti directed at Ben and Mehjabean on the walls – graffiti that included plenty of four-letter words, including the word ‘kill'. To be precise, the phrase that stood out, because he'd done it as a two-colour affair in large capitals, was ‘KILL THE FUCKING DO-GOODER AND HIS TART'. When his dirty and holed rucksack had been stuffed full of his possessions he kicked open the door of his room and made his way down to the first-floor landing.