Rose and William I
It is dark, wet and late. Rose hammers against the glass of the front door. William is there, she must see him. Rose is angry and anxious. Where is he? Is he still there? What is she doing here, not only at this innocent looking door of an ordinary house, but in this damp town where the sun only appears as an insincere apology between the showers, cynically warming the streets and the people in readiness for the next soaking?
She has not always been here.
She is born in K. a town in a large oil-rich African country whose citizens rarely see any benefits of the oil revenues which flow to the government and the multinational corporations who extract and export the commodity upon which the global economy depends for its smooth operation. She attends a girls’ boarding school and studies accountancy. Rose then goes to university and gets a diploma in management.
While Rose is at university, Horace, the man she will later marry, enters the UK on a visa to live with his mother who is settled in the UK.
Horace returns to K. and he and Rose are married in a traditional ceremony where Horace’s family give a dowry to Rose’s family. A paperless contract. Horace then returns to the UK and Rose joins him a few months later using a visitor’s visa. They stay with Horace’s mother-in-law in one of the northern towns which used to be a centre of the cotton industry, now desperately trying to re-invent itself. The cotton mills still stand, but the cavernous halls where machinery once thrashed and thundered now shelter “retail units” selling scented candles, tea towels and wicker furniture.
Rose overstays her visa. The relationship cools. Rose says that she and her mother-in-law don’t get on. Horace leaves, saying he is going to Ireland. In fact he returns to Africa. Six months after his return, Horace dies suddenly. Rose is not sure how he died, but tells an Immigration Tribunal that she thinks he may have been poisoned.
Horace’s mother returns to Africa, and Rose intends to do the same but is warned against doing so by her brothers and sisters. She tells the same Tribunal that Horace’s family blame her for his death and that Horace’s mother thinks that Rose is a witch who ensnared her son and took advantage of him to get to England.
Rose is stranded in England. She is also pregnant. Two weeks after Horace dies, she gives birth to a son, William, in the local general hospital. The child is named after Rose’s father.
She is housed temporarily in a hostel and someone in the church that she attends tells her that the only way that she will get any kind of money or housing is to apply for asylum. That’s what happens in the UK. So Rose, helped by the church’s pastor, makes the journey to Liverpool and declares that she is in need of protection from the British state authorities. She receives accommodation for William and herself, and regular support payments from the UK Border Agency. This provided by a local authority in a town a short distance away from where Rose had previously lived.
When she is interviewed by the UK Border agency, she says that her asylum claim was prompted from being unable to return to the house which she had once occupied with Horace and his mother. She is also afraid that Horace’s family would try and claim William as “one of theirs” and that they might try and take him forcibly from her. Rose also recalls that her brother had been shot and killed some years previously – the police had suggested that this was some kind of gangland pay off for her brother trespassing on another gang’s territory. Rose is unsure of any of the facts concerning her brother’s death, but says that this is another reason why she is afraid of returning to Africa.
Her asylum claim is refused. Rose’s lawyers file appeal papers with the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal but decline to represent her at the appeal hearing as they have been refused an application for legal aid as her case has less than a fifty per cent chance of success. The immigration judge who hears her appeal finds that her story is largely credible and carefully considers the issue of the possible outcomes for Rose if she were to return to her home country with a child whose guardianship could be claimed by Horace’s family. The state apparatus of that country has a poor record in safeguarding children’s rights, according to the information which he has before him from internationally recognised sources such as Amnesty and the US Department of State. However, he is not convinced that Horace’s family present a real threat to her in the way that she claims and dismisses her appeal as it does not meet the criteria for recognition as a refugee under the Geneva Convention.
Rose continues to live in her accommodation and receives support from the UK Border Agency as she has a dependent minor child.
(To be continued)
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