Looking Up: Back on the Chain Gang

The ups, downs, challenges and triumphs of a prison leaver’s journey

Achmed – front wheel buckling as it hit the kerb, flying arse over tit onto the pavement, right foot tangling in the chain, arms outstretched, head cracking on the flags, spectacles bouncing into a shop doorway, his Deliveroo box spilling out chicken Jalfrezi and chips all over the path – never even had time to cry out.

Adam, seeing it all from ten yards away, dropped his satchel, ran over, and cradled the fallen rider in his arms. The stunned man’s forehead was weeping blood, Adam pressed a hanky to the wound, lifting him carefully out of the wreck.

‘Hang on, pal, your ankle’s caught in the chain…’ Adam’s hands were slick with black grease as he teased the chain apart, helping the rider hobble into the doorway, head in hands, blood streaming onto Adam’s hoodie.

‘Lucky no bones broken, pal, but your bike’s a write-off… have you got a phone? An ambulance will be hours though…’ Adam frowned. The rider looked familiar somehow… Somali, mid twenties, thin beard round his chin… one of the many, many men who’d suddenly appeared in town.

The rider spoke. ‘No… no ambulance, thank you, I am OK…’

Adam picked up the rider’s bent spectacles, handing them back. ‘Well… good luck pal, hope you er… get well.’ Adam returned to fetch his satchel, heavy with newly printed leaflets, making his way back to Overcourt Probation Hostel, his current unwelcome residence.

At the final corner of the street, Adam’s contact, Little Paul, drove up in his van.

‘Get them sorted OK, Adam?’ Adam nodded, the pair thumbing approvingly through the leaflets packed in the satchel, like they were newly minted twenty-pound notes.

‘BRITAIN RISE!’ they read, red and black letters, bold Union Jacks, men with beards holding fists in the air, numerous roaring lions and a small photo of a dinghy full of indistinct non-white figures. Assorted slogans filled the page.

‘Thanks, Adam, I’ll let you know when we’re handing them out. Once your probation bollocks gets sorted, you can join us back on the front line, pal.’

They shook hands, Little Paul grimacing at the smears of grease and blood.

Once back at the hostel, Adam soaked his hands in hot water, wincing as the grease melted, revealing a nasty gash in his palm, where the broken chain had cut into him, now freely bleeding. Pressing it with a towel, he rued his actions. Helping one of them immigrants… hand gashed as a result…

‘Goes to show,’ he muttered, ‘No good deed goes unpunished…’ 

He left his room, heading for the hostel’s little medical hatch. Lotions and plasters were applied, with a warning of tetanus. There was a bustling behind him, Adam turning to see the stricken bike rider hobbling up, staring at each other in surprise. 

‘Oh…’ said the rider. 

‘Er…’ said Adam, only recognising Achmed with his glasses back on. A fellow resident, they’d lived side by side for weeks, but never spoken. 

‘I didn’t realise you…’ muttered Achmed. ‘Thank you again.’

‘No worries, pal…’ An awkward silence fell between them, Adam sloping off to his room as Achmed made excuses about his injuries. Working on the side as a Deliveroo rider while he was at the probation hostel was absolutely forbidden, Achmed looked back at Adam, worried he might tell the staff.

Achmed had recognised Adam at once – finishing off a sentence at the hostel for inflammatory social media posts, Achmed had spotted him putting up posters round town, thinking nobody would notice. A serious breach of his own hostel conditions, Adam was on shaky ground himself. One word from either man in the wrong ear, and they could both end up back in chains.

Ankle bandaged, head dressed, Achmed hobbled out into the hostel’s small garden, where residents were still allowed after their curfews had closed. He sat awkwardly, rubbing his ankle. No more Deliveroo work, that was certain. There was always car washing, but the soap gave him a rash, and some of the others had already been taken away by immigration officers. He shook his head. And now, Adam the activist could pull the plug on him, any time…

Adam stared out of his window, watching Achmed.

Why had he helped him? Rushing forward like that… cradling Achmed like he was a kid who’d fallen off his bike… injuring himself in the process, no less… what would Little Paul and the other lads in ‘BRITAIN RISE!’ say, if they found out?

Adam pulled the curtains, confused, angry with himself, feeling like a traitor, his self-loathing wrestling with his humanity.