Running out of Time by Simon Fox

Author:Simon Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Published: 2022-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

BEFORE

“Keep your eyes open,” Dad says. “This might be the sort of place we can find someone to help.”

We are sitting at an outside table of a fast-food restaurant at a service station about twelve kilometres before we reach Dunkirk. Time seems to be drifting by but we just wait. Dad is tense and irritable, snapping at me not to make a mess when I start picking apart the paper cup I’ve been drinking from. He still hasn’t said anything more about Mum and I don’t want to ask while he’s in this mood. I slurp again at the last of the drink, then tell him I’m going to the bathroom.

There are facilities inside, but there is also a sign to an old shower block round the back where there are fewer people, so I go there. But as soon as I walk in I wonder if I’ve made a mistake.

The room is full of people talking in a language I don’t understand, until silence seems to crash down as soon as I go in. Scared faces look up at me, large eyes full of fear. An older man barks something at a boy who is near the door and I see his eyes dart to the lock, which he must have forgotten to use. I raise my hands.

“It’s OK,” I say in English. “No problem. It’s OK.”

There are about twenty of them. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, squashed into the small room. On the side, a man with only one arm is struggling to unwrap a chocolate bar. A young woman has burn marks on her face and hands. In a corner near an old sink, a mother is washing her child’s face and the running water is now the only sound. The little girl stares at me, then looks away bashfully as I catch her eye.

“Syria?” I ask.

A man nods. He tries a smile and I smile back.

“Going to England?”

More nods now.

“Me too,” I say. “We’re going to England.”

A young man scowls. “Easy for you,” he says. “Buy ticket, go to England.”

But I shake my head. “Same as you,” I say.

He laughs. “Easy for white boy,” he says, but then one of the old men snaps something at him and he stops.

I look around and nod to them. “Good luck,” I say. Then I back out of the room and they lock the door behind me.

When I tell Dad he looks up sharply, then twists to stare around the service area. Behind the restaurant and the shower block is the main lorry park and he tells me to move so that we are sitting at the end table where we can see.

“They’re here for a reason,” he says. “Maybe it’s what we need.”

Almost immediately, a silver Mercedes convertible rips into the lorry park and swerves into one of the lorry spaces. Two men get out. One is European-looking, dressed in smart clothes with his phone clamped between his shoulder and his ear, barking instructions at someone. The other is younger and looks African.

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