It was an early spring this year. The warm sunshine brought snowdrops, croci, daffodils and forsythia blooming together and the countryside was painted joyful yellow. She smiled and loosened her scarf and unbuttoned her coat as the sun streaming through the dusty bus windows warmed her shoulders and melted away the tension she had been holding in for months and months. She relaxed and mentally gave thanks to Wendy who had befriended her and helped her master the English language, she gave thanks for the people of ‘Be Kind’, the charity which had guided her through the labyrinthine tangles of Home Office red tape she had need to navigate in order to stay and work in Britain, she gave thanks to the agency who had found her work but above all she gave thanks to God, whom she had trusted to give her the strength to endure the nightmares of recent years.
She had survived.
‘Mon refuge et ma forteresse, mon Dieu, en qui j'ai confiance,’* she murmured.
From the bus she could see over the hedges, still spiky and
bare from their autumn trim. The gardens she passed were well tended, magnolias
had started flowering and willows were bearing the first leaves of the year.
The other trees shimmered golden in the sunshine, pregnant with leaf buds about
to burst forth. The land was bathed in warm yellow light, a comforting yellow
and a very different yellow to the hues she had become accustomed to on her
journey to this place. Best not think about the festering yellow of the endless
deserts, the ramshackle yellow buses of hot chaotic cities, the dirty yellow boats
crossing yellowy-brown angry rivers with their cargoes of yellow life-jacketed
fares with feverish and fearful yellowing eyes and faces peering out into the
beyond, entrusting their lives to evil men with yellow-stained teeth. Then came
churning waves foaming yellow, more yellow life-jackets then the creamy yellow
of grubby detention centre walls and the fluorescent yellow of patrolling ‘security
officers’.
She shivered at the memories.
“How could one colour mean so many things?” she thought,
then, basking in the shimmering sunlight, she sighed aloud, “C’est Glorieux.”
She smiled and looked ahead.
She realised her destination was drawing near as the bus
passed a sign stating, “Corfe Hills Welcomes Careful Drivers.” That was where
her new job was. It was a live in post and all her earthly belongings, packed
in a red wheelie-overnight case had been bouncing alongside her on the luggage
rack of the rickety old bus. This was her new beginning. A fresh start on a
beautiful day in a safe place. She smiled broadly and then bent her head and whispered
in prayer,
“C'est
pourquoi mon coeur est dans l'allégresse, et tout mon être se réjouit;
Tu me fais
connaître le chemin de la vie ; et
en ta présence
il y a plénitude de joie.**
Merci, mon Dieu » and she looked up.
Across the bus, in front of her, the only other passenger on
the bus, a young man with gelled yellow hair and steel grey eyes had turned
around in his seat and was jabbing his nicotine-stained finger in her direction.
“You!” he hissed.
“Me Sir?” she replied, her now smile frozen on her face. She
fastened her coat and tucked in her scarf. She knew her stop would be coming
soon and besides, the sun had disappeared behind a cloud and she shivered.
“Yes. You! Whats you saying in foreign? Go back to your own
country if you can’t speak English! We don’t want you here.”
She got up from her seat and lifted her new red case down
from its resting place.
She avoided looking at the angry youth and went to stand by
the bus driver.
“Don’t worry love, takes all sorts. Don’t mind him. Yours is
the next stop,” and the driver gave her a smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
Just ahead on the left-hand side of the road, a sharply slanted slate roof top with seven chimneys and two gable-ends poked above a tall, dark leylandii hedge. Tall electronically operated gates were closed across a gravel driveway. There was a bus stop right outside, as she’s been told there would be. Gold lettering on a black sign told her that she had reached “Upton House Retirement Home”, her home and her workplace for the next stage of her life.
“Good luck!” said the driver as she stepped down from the bus and into a chilly March wind. She replied with a faltering smile and hunching her shoulders set off across the gravel to wait for the gates to open.
Along the base of the hedge the daffodils were yet to bloom.
She silently prayed,
“Entends ma
voix mon Dieu quand j'appelle ***
J'ai encore
besoin de toi."
She would survive …
* Psalm
91:2
** Psalm 16:9-11
*** Psalm 27:7
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