Tonight is cold, for spring, but the tram is warm. I sit where the sun comes through the window, low and bright. There were no clouds in the day and from this I know it will be a cold night. I can’t ride the tram forever and the beach will be cold. The wind comes off the water like it’s ice.
At Plane Tree Drive the faces were cold but the bed was warm. Ahmad did not want me. In Kabul we would not have been friends. We would have walked past each other on the street and I would have looked to the ground to avoid his eyes. He might have spat at my shoes. But here, we have something in common. We are Asylum Seekers.
Ahmad talks about Afghanistan every day. But I tell him here no one talks like this and history seems very short. Here, the tribes are different. Football-Team-Coloured tribes. Size-of-Your-House tribes. Cost-of-Your-Car tribes.
But Ahmad and I cannot forget the history that lives in our bones. That history was told to us in dangerous words after dinner, since we were alive. We cannot live in that little flat and pretend our families could be friends.
On the tram it is also better to not look at anyone in the eye. But there is a woman opposite who looks up at me every now and then. I wonder why she’s not afraid.
We are nearly at the Bay and I try to remember a place I can go to sleep where the wind won’t rush through like the whoosh of a bomb. Where the cold won’t go into my bones.
The woman is looking at me again as she gathers her shiny handbag and finishes her takeaway coffee. She has dark skin like me, but we don’t look alike. She smiles at me and I feel warm for a moment, but then I look away.
The tram stops, right before the beach. Everyone gets off and rushes like they have important things to do, but I just walk to the jetty, slowly.
The jetty is old. Paint and rust hold it together. I stop and watch a seagull swoop for something.
‘It’s gonna be a cold one.’
I turn and see the woman from the tram, looking at her phone. Her voice is big. High like a whistle but strong like a wall.
I nod. She looks up at me and puts her phone in her bag.
‘You sleeping rough?’
I don’t know how to answer that.
‘The backpack. The hair. You look like you need a shower, mate.’
‘Ahmad kicked me out,’ I say.
‘Who’s this Ahmad? What did you do to him?’
I can’t answer that either. How do you explain years of ancient history that is not even your story?
‘I won’t bite, lad. You’re shaking like a leaf. What’s your name?’
‘Faraj,’ I say.
She holds out a hand to me. I can’t take it, but I try to smile. Ruby is still looking at me like I’m a puzzle, but then she looks away and out to sea.
‘Love this place. Always come here on my way home from work. Just a few minutes, looking out there, is all I need.’
I look where she is looking. The water goes on forever and the sun is getting low. I shiver, thinking about another night outside.
‘Where’s your mob?’ asks Ruby.
‘What is a mob?’ I ask.
‘A family. A history. Your people. Everyone has a mob.’
I shake my head. Ruby is wrong. My mob are all dead.
Ruby starts talking again, slowly as though she’s told this story a thousand times.
‘Just because you can’t see it, or it isn’t in the books, doesn’t mean it’s not real. My mob, my history, isn’t in the books, lad. There’s no white-fella history that tells my story. My story is here,’ she points to her heart, ‘and there,’ she points to the water. ‘We know our stories. We tell them to each other, so that we remember. Always remember, lad.’
But to remember is to hurt and I want to forget.