Today I found out that another mystery that caused me pain, will never be solved by the powers that be.
Despite this letter from the public health department of the council arriving in my postbox a couple of months ago, and the reams of answers that I sent back, Tracey (apt name) from the office dealing with the investigation into the outbreak this morning told me that presumably there was no link to be found amongst those who fell ill that weekend and therefore no further information could be sought or offered.
By now though, Neela will have been deported. It would seem she has got away with it.
If her last act in this country was indeed to poison a section of society, it is pretty ironic considering she was once going to be a doctor.
She came to Britain a few years back to stay with family. It was difficult leaving her husband and their son but things hadn’t been right for a while, she dreamed of bigger and better things and Kalim was happy working where he did. She had a photo of them in her purse – well, she had, it must have dropped out one day and some weirdo had picked it up and kept it. Still, she wrote regularly, sent money home when she could. It got harder when her status changed to ‘illegal’.
She arrived in Liverpool with the intention of working with her cousin in one of the restaurants on Bold Street, until a job came up at the school of Tropical Medicine.
It never did.
Instead, she suffered years of misery. Yes, she had her extended family around her, but missed the warmth of her husband and child, whom she presumed she would not even recognise now. Still, as soon as she was home she would track them down and find out how they were getting on. In a way she was looking forward to going home even more since her town featured in the successful film Slumdog Millionaire. She couldn’t wait to see the changes.
Ever since her arrival in Britain, Neela has been the victim of racist comments at work, in the street. Since the London bombings it had got much worse. But so had the country in general, and the things she saw more regularly now, meant that she wasn’t even that upset the day the letter came telling her she had to go ‘home’. In the past few years, she has had her phone stolen, found out she was working with a load of prostitutes, and most recently she has seen a car crash when the guilty driver sped off.
She just wanted to have a little bit of revenge, it was playful more than anything, she certainly never wanted to hurt anyone.
I guess we’ll never know quite how she did it, unless she comes back to confess, but Easter 2009 will be remembered by many for the week they were infected by campylobacteriosis. Some thought they were going to die, so severe were the gastro pains and headaches. Some lost over half a stone, their appetite, precious time with their families, all because someone else was having to finally admit their dream had died, and left a mark of contamination amongst innocent citizens unlucky enough to eat and drink there that day.
Neela says she will be back.
