Read Breach for Free Online Page B

things that got your mother into trouble. Your mother would counter that at least she was still forming her own opinions.
    You wonder what the pictures are now. Of people like you, here, in the camp. What will stick this time? The muddied clothes you try to keep clean but which hang drab and damp on your bodies? The queuing?
    The woman arrives. She wears those practical clothes made for outdoor activities. Her jeans are too tight to have any layers underneath but her jacket is loose and has a few square pockets that look like they can hold a whole loaf of bread. You poke Mariam, who is still waiting for someone to pick up the phone on the other side. She looks up.
    ‘Hi. How are you?’
    ‘Good.’
    The woman crouches down. It’s obvious that you can’t speak to anyone when you tower over them.
    ‘I like your hair,’ she says.
    Mariam hangs up before her mother can answer.
    You too like the woman’s hair. It has just been done: the cornrow lines are sharp and the pattern is unusual. The strip of hair in the middle is twisted and falls to the sides in a straight line from forehead to neck. Mariam does yours. For some reason she took her time when she did it last. It was another sunny day, much warmer than today, and you sat outside chatting and laughing, your head between her legs as she braided it in the traditional style. She gets hers done by someone else because you’re not good at it. But she doesn’t do yours often. You can’t really wash your hair here. It’s a nightmare.
    ‘Thanks,’ you reply. What does this woman want?
    She asks you how things are here. Her shoes are not appropriate for the camp. You wonder if she paid attention to the instructions given to volunteers. Her shoes are flat but dressy, good for the office. They are old but still, not practical at all.
    ‘Difficult,’ you reply. What a waste of a calm minute. You, Mariam, here. A bit of quiet while your friend comes up with more stories for her mother about how she has not been paid by the alteration service she is lending her sewing talents to before she can find proper employment. Her optimism is matched by her ability to create elaborate stories. And she can remember them: she doesn’t make mistakes, draws her mother and the rest of the family into the alternate world she dreams up, distracting them from the details of her stuck-in-transit-ness.
    The woman wants to sit down, you can see it. Her eyes are angling for an invitation.
    ‘It must be hard.’ She’s waiting for your response. ‘Here.’
    Mariam is nodding but she doesn’t say anything either. It’s such a useless question. Your blood is starting to boil. Her five-minute concern is not going to help you keep warm at night, or leave this hellhole altogether. You will still be queuing in one line while she redoes her nappy curls in a salon at the end of next week.
    ‘Is there any camp gossip? Any love stories?’ the woman asks.
    ‘Not really,’ Mariam replies. You want to shake the woman until her hair comes loose.
    ‘No one has time for that. Too much to think about,’ you say, your lips straight, your teeth hardly lifting. She can understand. Of course she can. You don’t care.
    Mariam leans over and says something to you in Tigrinya. It makes you think. You pull yourself together and smile at the woman. She smiles back.
    ‘Is that your van?’ Your head jerks briefly. The mother has come out and is talking to the people who have parked next to her.
    ‘No, my friend’s there.’
    ‘Where are you from?’
    ‘London.’
    Mariam shrugs her shoulders when you whisper to her.
    ‘Can you take us? We’d hide in the back.’
    The woman still smiles.
    ‘I wish I could. Really, I do.’
    There is no surprise, no resentment. She holds your gaze.
    ‘Nobody would know.’
    ‘It would be smuggling.’
    Mariam is quiet, her phone resting on her chest while she follows the two of you like a close-up tennis match. Back and forth. There is more to be said about the silences