Mid - November 2006

I arrive at the Unity office a little later than I planned. It is quiet. I tidy up the toys lying on the floor and organise the leaflet rack. It is a cold rainy day.

A man and a woman come in, it is their first time here, their faces show anxiety. They are given the forms to put their contact details on but are uncomfortable writing. I fill the forms out form them. They hand me their most recent letter from the home office. “Liable for detention” it says. They have been here 3 years. They don’t go into details as to why they came. “Politics”. I don’t press to know. I lift my head from looking at the form I am writing on and past the couple I see a smiling face I recognise. It’s the man I took to the hospital. I smile back. The couple have to go, it is their time to sign in at the home office.

I talk with the man. He has somewhere to stay but he still hasn’t been able to see a doctor. The only place he is told to go is Accident and Emergency and we already tried that and it isn’t an accident or an emergency although it could become an emergency if it is not dealt with. Someone makes a few phonecalls. He is not entitled to see a doctor. It is at the discretion of the practices. We find him some addresses to try and he heads off.

People come and sign their name. Men on their own, women on their own, families, women with push chairs. They go to the home office and then come back and cross their names off the list so we know that they are out.

“Safe for now”, says a woman with 2 children on her return.

Another woman with 2 children about 3 years and 18 months comes in. She starts talking to me very quickly. Her English is perfect but I am still finding it hard to understand her. Slow down. Her lawyer will phone. She isn’t going to sign she is going for a special interview and she wants to leave her children at Unity. Fine. The younger one is asleep in the push chair. The older girl is quiet with cheeky eyes.

Another woman this time with 3 kids. Another pushchair. She is early for signing so they come in to wait for their time. The children start playing. The office is small and there is a lot of walking around and over toys, kids and pushchairs. She says “I’ve been here 3 years if I couldn’t stay why they no tell me this when I arrive? Why?” The baby starts crying and then the girl starts crying. I hold the baby while his mother sorts out the bags and the other kids and then after a bit of backing the pushchairs in and out of the door into the rain they are off with a nod and a thank you. I sit on the sofa beside the litle girl who is still crying, put some dolls around her and ask her if she wants a biscuit. She says no but takes it.

It is quiet for a moment. I go and wash the mugs and the thermos flasks that had hot coffee in them, drunk at a vigil outside the home office.

The girl starts playing with her little sister’s balloon. She throws it at me with a naughty grin, she throws it in the air, her arms up high. She chases it around the office. Her little sister has woken up, I take her out of the pushchair, she reaches over me for some toys. Their mother comes back. I breathe a small sigh of relief. She was gone quite a while, and I wasn’t sure what to do with the kids next if she didn’t come back! They get ready and go to leave. The woman says, “When I was in Dungavel you at Unity helped me so much, thank you, thank you.”

The steady flow of people coming and going doesn’t stop. Sometimes they stop to talk. Often they put some coins in the collecting tin by the door, sometimes it is just a nod in and a nod out.

One woman asks a question. “How can I get permission to work? I have been volunteering as a receptionist and they are turning it into a job in January and they want me to apply for the job. I was told that I am eligible to apply for the right to work and my lawyer applied in April but still I haven’t heard anything.” I have no advice to give her.

The lawyer of the woman who left her kids with us while she went for her interview called. “Is she out safe? How long was she in there? I couldn’t reach her on her mobile so I was concerned. Okay they’re out, that’s good.”

A man comes in for the first time. He has been in the country for four years. The letter he shows me from the home office again says that he is liable to be detained. There is someone else there who speaks his language. Translating back and forth to find out his details, a bit of his story. Darfur again.

I update a woman’s details. Get the names of her 3 children. Why is she here, why has she been here for the last 4 years and now has to register at the home office every week? There was family pressure to perform female genital mutilation on her daughters. She took them away.

A middle aged couple come in with warm homemade bhajis and pakora. They are welcome and delicious.

A worried family. The girl who looks about 12 does the translating for her mother. “Has there been a fax?” No. I’m handed a phone to speak to a man, I call the lawyer, they’ll send the fax. The woman paces as we wait for the fax. She looks in pain, she walks like her hips are painful. The papers arrive, they take them to the home office.

While this is going on there is competition for the phone line. A teenager is calling for a friend who is in detention but they are not sure where. When she isn’t on the phone she is chatting about her Highers. “Have you done higher maths?”, she asks someone else, “ How did you find it?”

The man who went looking for a doctor comes back. He has not managed to find one. He said, they said that he had somewhere to stay and was not going hungry and not to worry. He said, he said, “I’m worried, money means nothing to me, I need my health.” And they said that they couldn’t help him and he talked some more to them with philosophy. “I think I made trouble there, Anna.” I laugh, make him a coffee, he huddles himself besidet the heater with paper and pen.

I get on the phone. I try another practice. Do you take asylum seekers? “Oh yes.” Can you help? He is registered but his identity card hasn’t come through yet and he is in temporary accommodation. “Oh, we only take asylum seekers housed in our area.” I press the point. She is fractious.

“It’s not our responsibility!”

“Well, whose responsibility is it?”

She switches to being gracious and polite and there is a lot of rustling. I am given a name and a number. I call. What is the situation? She doesn’t know anything about him. He is not officially entitled to anything but she could get him a temporary GP as long as she has the induction papers. Induction papers? I find out where these are and phone.

“We’ve already dealt with this man. We sent his papers to the woman last Tuesday.”

But I just spoke to the very same woman and she knows nothing about him.

“We’ll fax the papers again today.”

All this time the man is sitting and drawing. He is an embroiderer. Used sewing machines at home. He comes and shows us his work pen on paper. Beautiful, intricate, symmetrical patterns. He has written under it, “Man is not God, Life is War, Good Luck Unity, One Love.”

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