Someone Else's Conflict Read Free Page A

the police station, and while she was describing the purse, its contents and where she’d last seen it, her annoyance and frustration grew as it occurred to her that her fuel tank was low and she now had no money or card to fill it. She gave a brief description of the youth – purely as a possible witness, she told her conscience – and left as quickly as she could, as if by setting off sooner she could reach her destination before the petrol tank ran dry. It didn’t work. The gauge was too low for common sense and she ended up phoning to rearrange the appointment for Monday and going straight home to raid the freezer.
    Why had he run? He hadn’t run, Vinko’s pride told him, he’d walked away. Had no choice, after being so reckless. Reckless? The woman had her patchwork bag hanging open, purse on full view – an opportunity, and he’d have been a fool to let it go. Better a sparrow in your hand than a pigeon on the branch. The kind of wisdom peddled by the storyteller – he hadn’t understood every word, but the stories held him all the same. And the music…the tunes had got to him, kind of familiar. What had been reckless was allowing himself to be held there, lingering when he should have been long gone. But since he had lingered, after the woman with the patchwork bag had safely moved on and the busker was packing up to go, he should have stopped to talk to him. Something had held him back like a physical barrier. Perhaps it might have been different if he hadn’t overheard the conversation at the market stall which suggested the man would be back.
    The square was still busy though the sky was duller, the air muggy and threatening. Eager to salvage something more than a day out in much pleasanter surroundings than the city he was living in for now – he refused to think of that as anything other than temporary – he spent a few moments watching the steadily dwindling crowds. People on days out, perhaps less wary of their possessions than they normally would be. He wasn’t particularly proud of the way he got his pocket money, but it didn’t bother him too much. These people would happily put coins in tins rattled for the orphans of war, so wasn’t he simply cutting out the middleman, saving them the trouble of nagging their consciences to part with a few pennies? Enabling them to help a little without having to worry about the blanket nationality of Illegal to colour their judgement? He hated the drudgery of his job at the factory and knew they paid him half what they should, but he also knew he was in no position to complain or do anything about it. It barely covered the rent of his room in a run-down shared house and only just bought him enough to live, so he felt entitled to make a little extra until he could find a way of getting citizenship. Get himself a proper job, train to do something worthwhile. If he ever did. His mother had been forced to stay on in Germany when the refugees drifted home, had never registered his birth, and ever since he’d been old enough to wonder about these things he’d never known where it left him. As far as he knew he wasn’t legally entitled to be anywhere. He supposed you could buy anything if you had the means, including the right to exist.
    He hung around for a few more minutes, vigilant; this wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped. People may be less wary, but he was unsure of his ground, had to keep an additional part of his awareness alert for others whose territory he might be invading. Eventually he decided to content himself with the sparrow he’d already caught. Locked in a cubicle in the public toilets, away from prying eyes, he removed the cash. He had no use for cards, and in any case he never intended to take that much. On his way back to the square he dropped the emptied purse onto a low wall as deftly as he’d taken it. As he walked towards the bus stop he saw the woman heading