‘At least you’re not fucking presenting them anymore.’
‘Oi. Don’t take the piss out of my presenting skills. Granted, I’m better behind the camera – producing, organising, kicking arses – but so are you.’
The thing about friends – really good friends – is that you can be silent with them. So we just drank for a few minutes and looked out at the bored office workers in suits and the students and the mums down in the piazza. The sound of skateboards scraping and knocking into steps somewhere nearby soundtracked our little moment.
‘I’ve had an idea.’ Bob stubbed out his latest cig, brushed the ash off his white shirt and the blue jeans it was tucked into. ‘I want to talk to you about it. We’re going to make a posthumous version of Ten Brutalist Buildings. I want to make it as a tribute to Belinda. It’s the right thing to do.’
I rubbed my face. ‘It’s not. It was her idea. It was going to be her programme.’
‘I know. But I’ve been thinking – I reckon we should do it anyway. I had to grind those bastards upstairs down enough to get the cash to make this. The readies are still on the table. Let’s use them.’ A well-placed pause in the drama. ‘Have a ciggie.’
‘You trying to charm me?’
Bob sparked up my fag. ‘Come on, mate, think about it. We’ll go to Leeds and London as well, we’ll do it properly. But most of all we can film around the city – we can capture the buildings in Brum she loved before they pull them all down. You know how much it meant to Bel to document the city, these buildings, the whole Sixties and Seventies aesthetic.’
‘You’d better be quick then.’
‘Exactly. You see, that’s it. We haven’t got much time. Everything’s on borrowed time – Bel’s buildings, Mids TV, my ticker. We need to just go and do it while we’ve got the chance.’
‘Bel was going to write and present the film. That’s what you two organised, right?’
‘Exactly. I wanted her to do it, mate. But this will still be hers. It’ll be a way to remember her. Our way to remember her. And the buildings she loved. And fuck over the bosses. I don’t want fucking Mackenzie getting his hands on the commissioning cash he’s already signed off for this. Not that the budget he’s deigned to give us is going to take us very far, but I’ll find a way to fudge that. I always do. We’ll shoot it cheap. Good but cheap. Cut down on tech and effects. Just keep it simple. Location shoots, no voiceovers.’
‘What would Bel say?’
‘She’d say: “Do it.” You know she would. She said yes, she acted, she was a bloody doer.’ Bob grabbed me by both arms. ‘Will you write it, mate? Write the script for it. I want you doing it. You can write it. Baxter can say it.’
‘Baxter? Does he have to?’
‘Look, I know he’s… trying, but let’s just do it with him. He’s probably the man for the job. God, I wish Bel was here still so we could ditch him. I’ll have to hook him up to life support to get any kind of human emotions out of him when he’s doing his pieces to camera, but beggars can’t be choosers. At least he’s presented arts programmes before, architecture ones. It’s a bit… niche.’
I walked over to the bannister at the edge of the terrace. It was flimsy; it warped in and out when you shoved it. I thought about Belinda walking and talking, enthusiastic. Academic yet sexy. A TV producer’s dream. Why hadn’t she done this before? She was made for presenting TV architecture documentaries. Any documentaries. She knew everything, she’d written the book, and she could talk too – all that lecturing had sharpened up her skills. And when she got her chance, finally…
‘She’d have been a wet dream for the bastards upstairs. They’d have loved her.’
‘They did love her. And if she’d made it onto the box they’d all be trying to shag your woman, Don. All over Brum, all sorts. But there’s only one idiot she had eyes for… Lucky, wasn’t it? I can’t believe she… well… just before we were due to start filming. Literally weeks before.’
‘Me neither.’
‘And with you two so settled. Everything so perfect. It’s tragic, really.’
I looked up at the sky and switched on my cerebral TV screen: Bel was on, standing still with a slight pout while the photographer took production stills to be circulated to the newspapers and magazines, who would undoubtedly give her five-star reviews. Bel on the front of the Evening Brummie. A famous wife. I’d have taken us on holiday to Sardinia again to celebrate. She loved it there. I walked over to the grubby windows and looked back into the bar. The barman seemed lost in his own world. Polishing glasses. I wondered what he was thinking about. To my right, buses swarmed along Broad Street.
‘Cities are a work in progress – they’re never finished and they’re never started. Bel knew things always change. They always change, Bob.’
‘People are a work in progress.’ Bob’s eyes looked apologetic. He squeezed my right arm. ‘Not just cities. And yes, things change, and mostly we don’t want them to. We want things to just stay the bloody same, because it’s less of a faff that way. You’ll get better, mate. We’ll look after you. I’ll look after you.’
‘She made this city, and the squalor, so appealing. She made me see it differently, love it. Now every fucking building I look at, every stupid subway I walk through – it always reminds me of her.’
‘Course it does. I know that. And that’s a good thing. You shouldn’t forget her. We’ll all remember her. Let’s do this. For Bel?’
I nodded.
‘Now you need to read that book of hers again, and you need to magic me up the best bloody script you’ve ever pissed out. Bring that book to life. Bring Bel’s thoughts to life, and we’ll film it exactly how she wanted; you can say all those things she wanted to say – well, Baxter can if I can hotwire the fucker. But let’s do it. I want you to have something to do. I want you to be busy. Don’t brood. Promise me you’ll do this? You won’t just sit at home moping?’
‘OK, Dad.’
He jostled me, good-naturedly pushing himself into my flank. ‘That’s the spirit. Aren’t you glad you came in? Now I’m going to get Kate straight on to this. She can plan out all the shoots, organise the dates and the transport and whatever else. The archive footage. I’ll get her to come and get a script off you in, say, a fortnight? And then I want you on all the shoots with me and Kate and that gothic tosspot who’s presenting. You never know when it might need a rewrite, or he might need a kick up the arse, or I might need a drinking buddy.’
‘You just want to keep your eye on me?’
Bob smirked. Of course he did. ‘Nah, I just want my best people around me. Anyway, who knows when – or even if – we’re ever going to get another crack at shooting something like this. Mids is going down the toilet. We’re running out of time.’
‘Alright.’
‘Excellent. We’ll do Bel proud. Oh, and another thing. I think we should get her onto The Obituary Show. You know, the one on the radio? I’ve got a mate in London; he’ll have the producer’s details so it’ll be easy to sort out. She deserves it, Don. To be remembered all over the country, not just in the Midlands. You know it’s the right thing to do. For her memory.’
‘She never liked obituaries. I remember her saying they gave her the creeps. She thought she’d live forever.’
‘No one likes obituaries. No one lives forever. She was an optimist though. She wasn’t bitter like us. Even more reason why we need to do this for her, for her spirit to live on. To encourage all the other optimists not to lose faith. Now I’ll make the calls; you don’t have to worry about any of it. All I need you to do is read that book, write the script for Ten Brutalist Buildings and give it to Kate in a fortnight.’
‘You’re steamrollering me.’
‘Someone has to.’ Bob ruffled my hair. ‘Now then, son. Another beer?’
9
1999
‘Do you think you’re funny?’ Bel purred as she sparked up. It was a sticky summer afternoon. Heat dragged at her words and her movements. She
seemed more feline in the summer; she melted in and out of scenes, appeared in front of objects and on top of furniture, luxuriated, took me by surprise. She stretched and stared and knew she was in charge. I was naked, lying on the bed, reading Bel’s copy of The Fountainhead. The duvet clung to my back; a parched sensation gripped my throat. It cried out for an icy beer. She lay on her stomach, naked too, her head bobbing near my chest. I could feel her breath on me. She got up and started walking around, effortless, pausing by the window, entirely comfortable in her own skin. Endless bike rides had given her body a tautness that always thrilled me.
‘Stop being so Teutonic,’ I said, without looking up. I felt her smile without needing to see it. ‘There’s no room for originality in architecture. No one can ever improve on the buildings of the past. One can only copy them!’
‘Good quote. True.’ She chuckled. ‘But do you? Do you think you are?’
‘What?’
‘Funny? Do you think you’re funny?’
‘Not really. Do you think I am? How do my jokes translate into Deutsch?’
‘They’re not really jokes, are they? They’re more clever than that. I think you’re funny. You make me laugh.’
‘Satire is different to those shitty stand-up club jokes. Satire’s what I really love. You’re just ripping into what’s given to you, looking at how stupid a thing is or how stupid people are, and mocking that.’
She stood by the open window, looking out down Leighton Road. ‘Why are all the cars in our road red or white?’
‘It’s a law we have in this country. It’s the 1990s, we like our cars red or white. We legislate.’
‘Shut up!’
‘OK, it’s not a law, but I guarantee this – the shittier the car, the more likely it is to be red. Look. Seriously. It’s just fashion. All cars will be, I don’t know, silver in ten years’ time. Slightly less shit ones are white. It’s common knowledge. Tell me what colour the small cars are.’
‘Red, you’re right.’ Bel chuckled. ‘I think you’re funny. But funnier on paper, funnier in what you write for the telly than in real life. But I wouldn’t want to go out with a stand-up comic or someone like… that. They’d be on duty all day, you’d have to laugh all the time at what they said.’ She paused. ‘If you were like that I would have to kill you. I like what you say. And I like what you write, even the stuff that’s shit, like the game show with dogs.’
‘Even the stuff that’s shit. Lovely.’
She chuckled again. ‘I mean…’
‘You won at that game show. Or don’t you remember the episode you and Breuer starred in? Our champion downstairs certainly does. He tells me about it all the time. He reckons he got a lot more attention from girl dogs down the park after his star turn.’
‘What did we win again?’
‘A very large bone made out of… plastic? Wood? And three hundred and sixty-five cans of dog food.’
‘One a day. Very generous of Mids TV.’
‘Got a deal from the pet food factory in Solihull actually.’
‘So?’
‘OK yeah… the thing about the planners, now that was funny. I think.’
‘It was.’
‘But I am rather ashamed that my entire fucking career has been spoiled on so many occasions by having to write all kinds of mainstream TV rubbish to pay the bills. If only I could have been one of those film auteurs who went decades between deals, only dedicating themselves to the very best and most important projects.’
‘We all need to earn money. That’s why I’ve done teaching. That’s why I worked in a cafe when I was younger and pulled pints in the Bride. That’s life. That’s Western capitalism.’
‘I love how it’s “western”.’
‘Well it’s not eastern, is it?’ She planted a kiss on my cheek then retreated back to the window.
She thought I’d gone back to reading but I hadn’t. I stared at her over the top of the book. She brandished her fag in one hand; the other was pressed on her hip. ‘Do you think I’m too serious? Is my writing too serious?’
‘It’s romantic and it’s passionate. It’s perfect.’
‘You’re staring at me.’ She turned. Her eyes on my eyes.
‘Sue me.’
She looked away again. ‘I like our road. I like the shape of it. It’s just the right length and width, and the houses just sit nicely against it. A row of happy houses like the ones kids draw.’
‘It’s too suburban for you, surely? Too twee. Too English?’
‘I have time for some guilty pleasures too, you know that. A bit of twee, a bit of irony. And, as a matter of fact, I have rather a soft spot for England. For Englishmen. As long as they don’t like football.’
‘I don’t.’
‘I know. That’s good.’ She started forming her hair into a ponytail. ‘There’s Mrs Henderson, back from the supermarket.’ She pulled the window further open, leaned out, still nude, and shouted, ‘Mrs Henderson! How are you?’
I heard a muffled, ‘Not bad, bab? How are you?’ coming from our neighbour out on the street below.
Bel walked over to the stereo in the corner and began ferreting for something. ‘Do you think it’s naughty that I write about Brum so much but I’m not a native Brummie? I’m a foreigner. Worse – I’m the enemy.’
‘Because you’re not from here you can see things that the poorly educated locals like me can’t see. You have perspective. Outsiders write the best stuff, I think. You can’t be too close to the thing you’re looking at, otherwise you pull punches.’
‘That’s what I hoped.’
‘Anyway, you’re very nearly a Brummie now. You married one, you live here. You could have lived anywhere.’
‘I could have married anyone…’
She pressed the button that made the top-loading CD player door whoosh upwards. As it opened she smoothed her hair behind both ears. She reached up to the shelf and selected an album by The Rationalists, taking it daintily out of its case and popping it into the player. ‘Yes,’ she said, pressing play, ‘this.’
Bel turned to face me, shut her eyes and started to dance. And do you know what? That was probably the best moment of my entire life. I knew that song only lasted a little under five minutes, but I wished it would go on forever, because that was as perfect as a piece of paused experience could get. Listening to that song while the only woman you’d ever loved danced naked in front of you like she’d come straight out of a fucking dream. I knew we were going to be together forever that day. That’s what I told myself. I told myself: You and Bel will be together forever. Neither of you will ever die. Ever. Because you don’t think that either of you will ever die, do you? If you did, everything would collapse in on itself. You just have to keep on believing, deluding yourself against the realities that stare back at you when you look in the mirror, the lines and wrinkles that grow as you get nearer to death. You ignore them.
10
1974
What did I have in my satchel? Sweets, crisps and a glass bottle of pop. And my A–Z. When I’d turned ten everything changed. I was allowed to bike as far as I wanted. Well… OK, the rule was that I wasn’t supposed to go further south than Kings Heath, further west than Cannon Hill Park, further east than Stratford Road or further north than the tram depot at Balsall Heath. In practice I learned that I could flout these rules with absolute impunity. As long as I was home by five on the dot, which I always was, I would get a kiss on the forehead, and fish with parsley sauce and peas, or sausages and chips, for tea. Really, the ruse now was stretching the forcefield to its outer limits, to see how far I could get before it snapped. This was, in effect, an ideal way to train a boy to be a spy. I was lying about where I’d been, deceiving my parents about where I was off to next. Along the way I was learning more skills in navigation, counter-espionage and observation than even the Cub Scouts was teaching me. It was enthralling to work these conundrums out. To play games with physical and mental spaces, spaces sometimes mapped in my mind
and sometimes using the A–Z, complete with its jarring spelling mistakes – mistakes I could see even at a tender age. The game helped me to comprehend distances, time, the fabric of the city in three dimensions. I had to understand not just how far somewhere at the edge of my growing world was, not just how to get there, but exactly how long it would take to get there and, crucially, to get back in time for my fish-finger curfew.
Something had caught my eye in the Evening Brummie the day before. After Dad had read the paper, it was always available for me to peruse at length. A new library was opening. I could have asked and I’d probably have been taken. It was a very innocent request, hard to argue with. But I craved something sweeter – doing it under my own steam. And so far the city centre had eluded me. I knew it would theoretically be fine. Not too far and not too long. Doable. Just. But the Middle Ring Road formed something of a barrier in my mind. I’d cycled up to the road – three times now in fact. But never crossed it. It scared me. The road itself was wide and disconcerting. The subways slung under it looked terrifying; the districts beyond it were filled with menacing blocks and dank-looking streets. I was particularly afraid of the tall flats in Highgate, on a hill, glowering down at me. I had an abnormal fear that someone was up in one of the blocks watching me. I’d seen curtains moving. Someone was there.
Twelfth of January. Saturday morning. I told my parents I was off for a bike ride and promised to be home by 5 p.m., as usual. I gave Ringo a big cuddle. He plodded all the way to the door when I left and seemed to sense tragedy. His eyes were more pleading than usual. I said, ‘Bye, Ringo!’ and he responded in his usual way, with a big, friendly bark. I cycled as fast as I could. North through Moseley, then the back roads through Balsall Heath I liked. There were fewer lorries and buses than the main road – I hated when either got too close to me and the parked cars. I reached the Middle Ring Road. It roared with traffic; at this precise point the road became something like a dragon, snaking down the hill. The cars were fire spewing out between its teeth, shooting past with deadly abandon. It took guts to go down into the subway beneath the road, and my heart raced as I strode into its dark maw. I saw some older boys approaching and thought I was going to cry. I held my nerve and walked past; they didn’t even notice me. Each time a car thundered over the top of me I jumped. Once I was out the other side, I cycled as quick as possible through the council estate, dodging bollards, hexagonal planters and men in wheelchairs. I had a map in mind, imprinted. I followed it, up through Highgate, the gloomy back streets of Digbeth, through Chinatown, under another ring road – this time the Inner one. To cross that ring road, at Hurst Street, there was a large underground cavern beneath the four roads that met at the junction. The weird subterranean space had shops inside. And men shining shoes. Voices echoed. The smell was sweaty. I pushed up, skirting round New Street Station and onto Hill Street. I had to push the rest of the way as the incline was too steep. At the top, sweating, I saw a monster. I’d been in town before with Mum and Dad, but never here. Never to this.
The Wall in the Head Page 6
