We were not, at the time, living in our own house. We had a problem there with subsidence, so we had moved into an apartment elsewhere while the house was underpinned. However, on that particular Sunday afternoon we had come back to check how the work was progressing, and to pick up our mail. We found a parking place round the corner and then walked back to our home. As we did so, I registered in my mind – fleetingly, almost subliminally – that there was someone sitting on the pavement near the corner. A young black girl with a small suitcase. Walking on, I managed to adjust the image to something more precise: a forlorn child, sitting alone with her possessions, and possibly scared. After we had let ourselves into the house, I told my wife that I was concerned about the girl. My wife, six months pregnant and uncomfortable, had scarcely noticed her, but agreed to walk back up the street by herself and find out if anything was amiss. A few minutes later she returned to the house with the girl, and the suitcase.
It was clear that things were very much amiss. The girl, no more than thirteen years old, spoke no English and was almost too frightened to enter an empty and unfurnished house with two complete strangers. With gestures, we managed to indicate our good will and we brought her in. We also managed to deduce, from her looks and one or two words, that she was Ethiopian. One of the blessings of working in London general practice is that you become close to patients from many countries. I had several Ethiopian patients whom I knew well and could trust. I managed to find the phone number of one of these, a middle-aged woman with teenage children herself. I called her to ask if she could speak with the girl and find out what was going on. She willingly did so, and soon established how the girl had come to be sitting on our street corner.
The girl was apparently a domestic servant for a wealthy family from Saudi Arabia. They had brought her over with them on a holiday to London, but had then become displeased with her and abandoned her with a few belongings when they left their hotel. She had started to walk, in the hope that God might lead her to some kind of rescuer. When she reached our street – five or six miles from where she started – she had become exhausted and stopped to wait for whatever fate had in store. She knew nothing about the current whereabouts of any of her own family, who had all dispersed from eastern Ethiopia in different directions during the war there. She asked my patient for reassurance that my wife and I had good intentions, and were not scheming to force her into prostitution.
Over the phone, I discussed with my patient what we should do. She made the offer I had hoped she would: to take the girl in before registering her with the authorities the following day. We drove the girl over to their home, had tea with the family, thanked them for their kindness, and left her there. Over the next few days I stayed in contact with them as they notified social services and supported the girl as she was transferred into residential care. A couple of weeks later I received a rather chilling phone call from a social worker who grilled me about my own role in the matter: why had I not immediately called the police, how could I be certain that my own patient was not an abuser, was I aware of child protection procedures… and so forth. To be honest, absolutely none of these issues had even crossed my mind. I replied curtly that I had been acting as a citizen and not in a professional capacity. I restrained myself from telling her that I taught on child protection courses, or from asking where her own humanity lay.
In various ways I kept abreast of the girl’s circumstances. She passed through a couple of foster homes, but stayed friends with the Ethiopian family who had been her first hosts. I saw her on a couple of further occasions, and she was clearly developing into a bright, feisty and alarmingly westernised teenager with an appropriately cool fashion sense. It is now nearly many since we found her. I imagine her to be probably a graduate, perhaps starting out on a professional career, possibly involved in political action on behalf of others. When I think back on twenty-five years of doing general practice, I can remember few more vivid or more positive moments than introducing her into the care of my patient that Sunday afternoon. And I remain mystified – as one always does – by the merciful influences that led her to sit down at the corner of our street at a particular moment on that Sunday afternoon.