up and leave everything I know.” Nadia tried for a light tone but failed miserably. “Let me just have a few more minutes in blissful ignorance, please.”
“Oh, hun.” Holly crossed the kitchen and pulled her friend into a hug. “You haven’t been thinking that, have you? They’re not going to deport you. You’ve lived here since you were a little kid. You’ve paid taxes here. You probably speak better English than me – and definitely better English than Ledge!” Nadia gave a weak little smile. “Everything’s going to be fine,” Holly promised. “Let’s open the letter.”
Nadia could barely open the envelope, her finger clumsily sticking as she used it to try and rip the seal. She shook the contents into her lap. A shiny folded booklet fell out first: a multi-ethnic group of people smiling out at her from under dark turbans and brightly coloured hijabs. It was followed by one piece of A4 paper, just one. Nadia tried to read every word at once; the print just swam before her eyes. She swallowed and cleared her throat, focusing on the familiarity of her name at the head of the letter and slowly fragments started to make sense.
Dear Miss Osipova… regret to inform you… application has been denied on the grounds that you have spent more than 450 days out of the country during your residency here… vacate the country within three months…
Nadia couldn’t read any further. She let the piece of paper fall to her lap on top of the leaflet and pressed the hands that had been holding it against her temples. Vacate the country. In three months she would be back living with her parents, something she hadn't done since before she was a teenager. She’d have to go and live in a country that she barely knew. She may not have ever been totally accepted as British – her surname and her international school accent and her constant visa issues had never allowed for that – but it was even worse when she was back in Russia.
She spoke the language perfectly, of course – she had to, as neither of her parents spoke English – but she never managed to be quite au fait with things like the current slang or the latest fad, always earmarking her out as a foreigner in the country of her birth. She may never have fully belonged in England, but then she’d never quite felt as though she’d ever belonged in Russia, either. And at least here she had her flat, her friends – and a collection of close-to-useless degrees and qualifications sitting atop a mountain of student debt, none of which had mattered to the Home Office, or were any bloody good to her now. She felt sick to her core.
It took Nadia a moment to realise that Holly was speaking.
“We’ll all be behind you, Nads; it’ll come off. You’ll see,” she was finishing, her face hopeful. She’d taken the discarded letter from Nadia’s knees and was holding it against her own.
“What’ll come off?”
“The appeal.” Nadia stared at her friend vacantly. “The appeal they’re suggesting you do?” When Nadia continued to look blank Holly began to read aloud from the paragraph Nadia had given up before getting to.
“'However, we do accept that you may exhibit appropriate grounds for claiming ‘private life’ here in the UK under the Article 8 Law. You have not been a UK resident for the 20 years that is required in your case, but – due to your comparatively young age – a Court of Appeals judge may be able to arbitrate on this further. Please find enclosed a leaflet on how to progress your appeal should you not be satisfied with our decision to deny you Indefinite Leave to Remain in the United Kingdom. Please note, however, that there will only be scope for one appeal and that the decision of which is final and binding. Costs will not be awarded'.”
Wordlessly Nadia took the letter back from Holly and read the concluding paragraph for herself.
“This is good news,” Holly beamed, getting to her feet. “Let’s celebrate.”
By the time Holly returned from the kitchen with two gently steaming mugs of milky tea, Nadia had re-read the entire letter three times and still wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“Do you want to get a takeaway in tonight?” Holly asked, setting the drink down in front of her silent flatmate. "The cupboards are a bit bare for a celebratory meal."
“Oh, Hols. Thanks. I’m just… not so sure that we should be celebrating as such, at least not yet,” Nadia admitted, her eyes drawn back to the letter again.
“What do you mean? Okay, I know it’s not exactly what we were hoping, but at least it’s not a ‘no’.”
Nadia stared at her. “It is a no. It’s quite clearly a no.”
“I think it's a strong ‘maybe’,” Holly argued. “They wouldn’t bother suggesting that you appeal if they didn’t think you had a good chance.”
“I know, I know. It’s just…” Nadia sighed. “It’s just who knows how much longer I won’t know where I stand, you know? How much longer am I going to be driving my parents into debt in order to get my rent paid?” She considered the letter closely again. “I reckon it might just be stall tactics; they’re hoping I give up and leave the country of my own accord.”
“Nadia, it’s just typical government red tape, not some sort of plot against you personally,” Holly frowned. “I think they’re being quite decent, actually, flagging up that you have the right of appeal rather than burying it in the small print.”
“You’re right. I just thought – either way – that this would all be sorted out today. I hate the not knowing.”
“Isn’t it better that you’re still in the dark, but still here?” Holly asked, quietly. “Rather than having to turn on your laptop to book a plane ticket right now?”
“Of course it is.” Nadia looked at her friend. They’d been inseparable since their school days. She noticed how white Holly’s fingers were as she held her mug of tea and remembered how pale her face had looked before the letter had been opened. She forgot sometimes that the not knowing was hard on her friends, too.
“I think I want… Chinese for dinner, then,” Nadia grinned, folding up the Home Office letter and slipping it safely back into its envelope, along with the appeals leaflet.
“I could go for some Chinese,” Holly agreed, thoughtfully. “The usual?”
“Of course.”
“Right, well I’ll get the order in. You” – Holly pointed mock-seriously at Nadia – “Go and call your parents and tell them the good news, right now.”
Alex
Thursday was Alex’s weekly “keeping up appearances” session at the gym. When he got home Rory was sitting on the sofa with a PlayStation controller in hand, besocked-feet up on the coffee table next to the remnants of a ready-meal curry, the neon-bright sauce already congealing on the white plate.
“No Lila this evening, then?” Alex asked, as he dropped his satchel onto a nearby chair.
Rory called up the menu to pause the game. “Nah. Good day? Kill any terrorists?”
Alex was never sure if this was just a long-running joke or if there was a part of Rory that genuinely believed his flatmate might be the British Jack Bauer. “No, not today.”
“You need to step up your game,” Rory told him matter-of-factly, starting up his own again. Alex sat down heavily on the sofa next to him, pulling the shoe off one of his feet with the other, relaxed in a way he never quite could be when he knew Lila was in the flat. He watched Rory progress through the level with a critical eye.
“No, you need to go up to the top of the general store. There’s a weapons’ cache up there. And a window with a great vantage point for shooting from,” he ordered.
Rory shot him a quick look whilst continuing what he was doing. “You really do know this game like the back of your hand, don’t you?” Alex shrugged. “You need to get out more,” Rory frowned, only half-joking.
Alex just shrugged