Writing for Fun
April 2018
The Immigrant - Pete Norman
The first day in any new job can be nerve-racking but for Alex today was turning into an unmitigated nightmare. At one point he wondered whether he might wake up in the comfort of his own bed and thank the Lord that it was only a dream but the longer it went on the more convinced he became that it was indeed for real – surely no dream could possibly be this bad.
He had given himself an extra half hour as ‘contingency’ to do this first journey but it had all gone downhill when the heavens opened up on the A12 – it was a storm of Biblical proportions – and the obligatory road accident was close enough in front for him to hear the screaming tyres and the rending of metal and to see the carnage in graphic detail. It was the start of a very long wait, with him looking at his watch every few minutes and realising that he was going to end up being very late and making a terrible impression on his first day.
When the road had eventually been cleared he drove carefully past three fire engines, five ambulances and countless police cars and then hurried on to Harwich, thankful that he was one of those fortunate enough to be able to drive away from the scene in one piece.
At the Port gates the official behind the grill seemed to take delight in making him jump through every hoop possible just to enter the secure area – it seemed that without the requisite security disc in the windscreen and so long after the normal shift start time the gate keeper was ultra-suspicious and demanded every form of id known to man short of a letter from his great grandmother signed in blood to prove his authenticity.
When he parked his battered Ford Focus in a marked bay alongside the large grey building he thought he had followed the man’s curt instructions to the letter but he had barely turned off the ignition when an irate official emerged from a door with the name of some obscure department sign-written above it, demanding to know who the hell he thought he was parking in one of their spaces. He was directed to an identical bay just a few yards away on the other side of some imaginary wall.
One final check of his watch as he walked through the door into the UK Border Force Office showed that he was more than an hour late. To his surprise the office was empty except for a young lady sat by the switchboard focussed exclusively upon her mobile phone. Sarah seemed to take little interest in his explanation for his lateness, merely informing him that the Aztec Star – which apparently was ‘a big bastard’ – had docked and so the whole shift had gone out to intercept it.
Alex dumped his bag on the table, adjusted his unfamiliar uniform into what he hoped was an acceptable standard and then hurried out of the door to join his new colleagues. Sarah lifted her eyes from the tiny screen to watch as he passed in front of her desk and he hoped that her lack of comment might signify that he was correctly outfitted but somehow he doubted it – he guessed that if he had put on a clown’s outfit and a luminous red nose he was unlikely to have drawn any further comment from her.
His good fortune was that the Aztec Star truly was a ‘big bastard’ and easy enough to spot in the endless jumble of the docks. As he drew nearer he saw a small group of uniforms standing in front of a small booth beside the exit road. Lorries were crawling slowly past, their trailers loaded with huge containers of every colour imaginable. Before he reached them a grey haired officer, who was clearly in charge, gestured towards an approaching lorry. One of the younger officers stepped forward and directed the lorry off the road into a coned off area. The disgruntled driver dutifully followed the instruction, turned off the engine and dismounted from the cab.
Alex approached the group with some hesitation. He was unsure how he should address his new boss – in his old job life had been so informal but these guys looked as if they had taken the Waffen SS as their role model.
‘Alex Wilson, sir. I’m so sorry, there was . . .’
The look of cold distain from the Chief stopped him in mid-sentence. ‘Save your excuses for later, Wilson. Now you’re here you might as well make yourself useful.’ He gestured towards a lorry approaching. ‘You can start with that one.’
Alex cast an anxious eye over a blue lorry with a huge grey Maersk container on its trailer. He had seen the way that the other lorry had been stopped and he desperately wanted to impress, to deal with this one as professionally as he could, because he knew that the Chief would be watching his every move. However, no one had ever gone through the fine points of a stop before and he was unsure of what he was expected to do.
As he stepped out into the road he heard footsteps behind him. A quiet voice said, ‘Put your hand up as if you really mean it. Gesture them into the layby with the other one . . . and don’t worry about Simpson, his bark is much worse than his bite. Once he gets to know you he’ll be just fine. And, by the way, my name’s Frank.’
Alex breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled the lorry over and walked to the rear with the driver, doing his best to look the part.
Frank broke the seal and together they heaved the huge doors open. The container was loaded almost to the roof with boxes and crates. The labels suggested that the entire container was laden with fruit. They opened a few boxes to verify the contents and Alex was instructed to clamber over the top of the pile to ensure there was nothing concealed behind them but everything appeared to be exactly as described.
He was just dusting himself down when he heard a cry from the other lorry. ‘We got one for the newbie here – his first illegal immigrant!’
Alex left Frank to secure the lorry and made his way along the layby to the other lorry. Two grim faced officers were standing guard some distance back from the doors but when Alex approached he heard the sound of their raucous laughter. There on the floor inside the container, in the gap between two boxes, a large lizard was staring back at him, its eyes blinking in the bright sunlight and its long tongue flicking rapidly, tasting the unfamiliar air. It was nearly two feet long, black and white and it was clear that the other two officers were quite uncomfortable in its presence.
To their surprise Alex was completely unfazed, he crouched down and studied the lizard carefully and then he stroked his finger down its head and along its body to the tip of its tail. The lizard made no attempt to move away, in fact it appeared to be enjoying the contact. Alex reached out and picked it up, supporting the somewhat podgy body against his uniform jacket.
One of the officers called out, ‘Be careful it don’t bite you?’
Alex shook his head. ‘Has this ship come from South America?’
Frank said, ‘Puerto Cabello, Venezuela.’
Alex smiled. ‘That fits then, this is an Argentine Tegu, they live in the Amazon Basin. It’s a fruit eater. They don’t bite – in fact people here keep them as pets.’
A hand touched his shoulder. ‘Nice one, son. I reckon you did ok – serves ‘em right for setting you up – but how come you know all this stuff?’
Alex said, ‘You never asked me where I used to work, sir.’ He passed the Tegu into the arms of a very reluctant Chief and then reached for his mobile phone and speed dialled a number. ‘Hi, Bill, it’s Alex. I’ve got something Colchester Zoo might be interested in.’