Brian Jackson
The cold came early that winter. In the shared kitchen, steam rose from kettles while pipes groaned behind the plaster. The house smelled of damp clothes and instant noodles. Brian worked short contracts when he could—loading bays, temporary welding—but weeks sometimes stretched without a call. The agencies liked younger backs.
Keith watched him fade. “You’re running on fumes, mate.”
Brian shrugged. “Been running on worse.”
They shared cigarettes at the back door, their breath rising like ghosts. “You still dream of the beach?” Keith asked once.
“Every night,” Brian said. “Braai vleis, Castle Lager, sand between my toes. Then the dreams change. Gunfire, alarms, dogs.”
Keith nodded. “That’s South Africa in one sentence—sunlight and sirens.”
One night after too much Bells, they argued gently about what had gone wrong.
Keith said, “I left when the ANC took over. Not because of colour—because I could see the greed coming. Men who talked freedom one year and bought Mercedes the next. The unions, the strikes, the hijackings. You could smell decay.”
Brian bristled. “You sound like the expats moaning in the pub.”
“Because I was one of them,” Keith said. “I just got out before the bullets came too close.”
Brian stared at his glass. “Maybe I didn’t want to see it. The beaches, the friends—it felt permanent.”
Keith lit another cigarette. “Nothing’s permanent. Not even guilt.”
They drank in silence. Outside, frost whitened the bins.
The next evening Brian took a walk through Watford’s underpass. A busker’s guitar echoed thinly; graffiti spelled names he didn’t know. He thought of Durban’s promenade—the same sea breeze, different poverty. A group of teenagers passed, their laughter edged with menace. For a heartbeat he saw the faces of the four intruders again, younger than he remembered. He gripped the rail until the shaking stopped.
When he got back, a message blinked on his phone: Jason – Call me.
The voice that answered was taut, urgent. “Dad, I need a lift. Just a lift, yeah? You got a car?”
“No.”
“Then borrow one. Tonight.”
“Where are you?”
“Tesco Express, Bushey Road. Half an hour.”
Brian almost said no. But blood is a stubborn word.
The car park was empty except for a delivery van. Jason leaned against the wall, hood up, eyes scanning. He looked older, wired.
“Thanks for coming,” he said, sliding into the passenger seat of a borrowed Escort. “Just a bag to pick up.”
“What’s in it?”
“Stuff. Don’t worry.”
They drove through sleeping streets. “You’re in trouble again,” Brian said.
Jason smirked. “Always.”
He disappeared into a block of flats and returned with a duffel bag heavy enough to make the springs groan. The metal inside clinked like chains. “Drive,” he said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere but here.”
Brian drove. The silence grew thick. Finally he said, “You’re going to end up dead or in jail.”
Jason smiled thinly. “At least that’s two options.”
When Brian returned to the HMO near dawn, Keith was in the kitchen, making tea.
“You were out late,” he said.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Keith raised an eyebrow. “You’re lying.”
Brian sat heavily. “He’s my son.”
“Then he’ll drown you.”
Brian rubbed his eyes. “He already has.”
They drank in silence until the kettle whistled dry. Keith said quietly, “You can’t save him. I tried with my boy once. Drugs, gangs. South Africa swallowed him. You’re fighting ghosts again.”
Brian looked up. “What happened?”
Keith stared into the mug. “They found him near Soweto, stripped, shot. No case file, no suspects. That’s when I packed up. I thought England would be clean.” He gave a small laugh. “Turns out ghosts cross borders easier than people.”
Weeks later police came knocking. “Mr Jackson? We’d like to ask about your son.”
They told him about the raid, the drugs, the assault charge. Jason had listed Brian’s address as next of kin. Brian answered what he could and signed a paper he didn’t read.
After they left, Keith said, “You saw this coming.”
Brian nodded. “I just hoped it wouldn’t be today.”
Keith poured them both whisky. “Hope’s a slow poison.”
The prison smelled of disinfectant and fear. Jason sat behind the glass, bruised but defiant.
“You look terrible,” Brian said.
“You look old.”
“You nearly killed someone.”
Jason leaned forward. “He deserved worse.”
“This isn’t you.”
Jason laughed. “You don’t know me. You left before I learned who I was.”
“I left to live.”
Jason’s voice dropped. “Then why do you look half-dead?”
The guard tapped the clock. Time up.
After the visit, Brian walked through drizzle to the station. On the platform he saw another man waiting—a tall African in a worn coat, clutching a plastic folder. They shared the shelter as the train was delayed.
“Cold,” the man said, smiling faintly. “England is always cold.”
Brian nodded. “Never warms up.”
“You are English?” the man asked.
“Was. Then I was South African. Now… I don’t know.”
The man chuckled softly. “I am from Congo. I left because soldiers came to our village. They burned, they took. I ran. When I arrived here, they called me refugee.” He looked at Brian. “But you? How can a white man from England be a refugee?”
Brian hesitated. “Because sometimes you leave a place you love, and when you go back, it doesn’t love you anymore.”
The man studied him. “Yes. That is exile.” He extended a hand. “Samuel.”
“Brian.”
They sat together as the rain thickened. “Do you have family here?” Samuel asked.
“A son. Prison. A mother, old. You?”
“Wife and two daughters. Still in a camp in Uganda. Papers take years. I clean offices at night.”
Brian nodded slowly. “You think you’ll ever go back?”
Samuel’s smile was weary. “To what? A burned village? But I dream it still. The red dust, the mango trees, the smell of smoke that was not from war. Dreams are stubborn.”
“Yeah,” Brian said. “They don’t care what’s real.”
When the train arrived, they rode in silence. Two men from opposite sides of a broken world, each pretending they knew where the line home was drawn.
At his stop, Samuel said, “We both lost our countries. Maybe one day we find another.”
Brian watched him disappear into the rain and thought, maybe that’s all any refugee ever does—keep moving so the ghosts can’t find him.
Back in Watford, nights grew longer. The light under his door burned until dawn. Keith sometimes stood outside listening—the murmured prayers, the half-laughed apologies. One night he knocked.
“Come smoke with me,” he said.
They sat by the window passing a joint. “Durban Poison,” Brian said. “Last taste of sunshine.”
Keith exhaled slowly. “Sunshine kills too much skin.”
Brian smiled. “You ever stop missing it?”
“No,” Keith said. “But missing something doesn’t make it worth going back.”
Brian nodded. “Maybe missing’s all that’s left.”
They watched headlights cross the ceiling like slow comets. Keith finally said, “You know, we came from the same rain. Two British lads chasing sun, and look where it got us.”
Brian laughed quietly. “Burned.”
“Exactly.”
They smoked in silence until the joint died between them. When Keith left, he paused at the door. “Get some sleep, boet. The ghosts are fed enough.”
But Brian didn’t sleep. He lay awake seeing Samuel’s face, hearing Hennie’s laugh, and smelling the sea he’d never touch again.
Spring came without promise. Jason was denied bail. The newspapers said Local Man Charged in Drug Assault. No name given, but the neighbourhood guessed. Hazel left a message with sympathy she couldn’t express aloud.
Brian stopped answering calls. He walked miles each day, half-hoping to collapse somewhere quiet. Once he found himself by the river, staring at the water and thinking how easy it would be to let it carry him. Then a child laughed nearby, and he turned away.
That night he went to the small Catholic church he’d passed a dozen times. Our Lady of Sorrows. The name fitted. He sat at the back, unnoticed, until the priest came over.
“First time here?” the priest asked.
Brian nodded.
“You’re welcome. We all wash up somewhere.”
Brian smiled faintly. “You won’t want my confession.”
“Then don’t confess. Sit.”
He sat. The quiet felt heavier than guilt, but softer too.
He came back the next night. And the next.
Keith noticed the change. “You’ve gone holy,” he joked.
“Not holy. Just tired.”
“Tired of what?”
“Running from ghosts.”
Keith nodded. “They’ll follow you to church too.”
“Then maybe they’ll learn to pray.”
When Brian told Father Delaney about Jason, the priest only said, “Sometimes love survives where forgiveness can’t.”
Brian didn’t understand until later.
As weeks turned to months, Brian began helping at the church—stacking food parcels, sweeping floors. He found a rhythm that didn’t depend on luck or alcohol. But the nights still came. The light still burned under the door.
One evening, after Mass, he found Samuel again outside the station. They shared coffee from paper cups.
“How is your son?” Samuel asked.
“Prison. Fighting. You?”
“Still cleaning. Still waiting for papers.”
They both laughed quietly.
“Maybe this is life now,” Samuel said. “Waiting.”
“Maybe,” Brian replied. “But at least we’re waiting in company.”
Samuel smiled. “You see? Even white men learn.”
They parted with a handshake that felt like recognition, not difference.
Back at the flat, Keith knocked once more. “Fancy the pub?”
Brian shook his head. “I’m done with pubs.”
Keith smirked. “Then you’re halfway to heaven.”
“Only halfway?”
“Any further and you’ll get bored.”
They laughed, the sound brittle but alive. For a moment, the house felt warm.
Yet that night, the dreams returned: Hennie’s body, the three dead men, the fourth running into darkness. When he woke, he whispered into the silence, “Forgive me.” The word felt lighter than before.