by Mel McGrath
Relief.
At Holland Hill, I run into a stinking fog. Like the old peasoupers, I imagine, but more toxic still. A violent blend of burning rubbish, disintegrating buildings and lit tyres. A long line of police vans bowls by in a northerly direction, heading for Brixton, many of them painted in the livery of distant forces. Out here the noise is tremendous: a sinister symphony of sirens, shop and car alarms. Throughout the city the usual plans and routines will be breaking down. Who knows where this will end? And when? And how? I stand with my hand veiled across my nose and mouth, adjusting to the acrid air. Anybody with any sense will be at home, staying out of trouble. This is not the hour to be out.
But I am. Out. And with nowhere to go. In other circumstances, I might make my way to Sal’s place, but the bus shelters are empty and on the arrivals boards a red LED message blinks: Await Announcements. I could walk it in an hour and a half. But I’d have to get through the barricades at Brixton. And besides, I am not so sure I trust Sal right now. Anja lives not far away. But I definitely don’t trust Anja. As for friends, well, there are none. At least not nearby. Not people I can count on.
Except. Except. There may just be one.
Sticking to the inside edge of the pavement, partly obscured by the shadow from the buildings, I edge around the back of the park, reaching the brow of the hill where it intersects with the South Circular. Here the light is a different colour from the blue-white of the street lamps. Up over the brow of the hill half a dozen burning tyres block the road. The only way to get through this night is not to be surprised by anything. Up ahead, it’s as if a shockwave has rolled over the familiar parade of shabby shops, blowing out their windows and shooting a miscellany of cheap goods out into the streets. A knot of people, their faces obscured by bandanas and hoodies, are busy transferring the loot into shopping trolleys and rucksacks. There is nothing worth taking but, in an act of desperation and rebellion, or maybe just for the thrill, kids are taking it anyway. Broken glass is everywhere, so much that, in the yellow light from the burning tyres, the road looks like a path of gold shouldered by banks of blackening cloud. Several police vans stream by, ignoring the looters, on their way to bigger, more dangerous incidents to the south. As I edge my way around the scene, past a cluster of overturned dustbins, my adrenaline reserves run out and I’m conscious, for the first time, of the effects of the sleeping pills on my brain. I’m slow and a little spacey. The inhibitory circuits have the upper hand. I won’t be making good decisions. Already I feel unreliable.
A group of youngsters register my presence, and, deciding I am of no consequence, return to their phones.
What’s one madwoman in a city gone nuts?
I walk on. Or stumble. Or float. I am no longer in touch with the motions of my body. Still, despite the drugs and the craziness and the unreliability, there does seem to be method in my madness. Sometimes the body knows more than the mind can tell it. Sometimes only the body knows the truth.
Turning east, I head into the grid of streets leading to the Pemberton Estate. In the pink and orange light, the place is like something infected that people have abandoned for fear of contagion. The stairwells are empty, the walkways are empty, few lights are on in the flats. A kid’s sock and yesterday’s fast food wrappers lie abandoned in parched grass by the car park. It’s then that the scent hits me. In the playground in the middle of the estate people have left bouquets of flowers, and also candles, toys, football scarves and photos of the dead boy. No police. They wouldn’t dare.
I’m making my way to Ash Building when a shadow by the bins calls out.
‘Hey, you want a smartphone? Pay as you go.’
I stop, turn, peer into the gloom as a young woman steps out of the shadow. The girl in the wedges. She doesn’t recognise me.
I say, ‘What you got?’
The phone is brand new, still in its packaging. Riot booty. Never mind, I need it. I volunteer a number, the girl gives a yelp of mock outrage and we see-saw our way to a deal.
‘You knew LeShaun Toley?’ I ask her as I’m counting out the money.
She shoots me a blank look. Not sure if it’s real or fake.
‘The dead kid.’
The same blank look. She doesn’t want to talk about it. In any case, this whole thing has gone way beyond LeShaun now. It’s seeped down into the cracks that people living on the Pemberton Estate have to negotiate daily, ruptures in the fabric of society which people living other lives closer to the park have, for the most part, chosen to ignore.
‘This,’ she says. She looks up at the police helicopter blading over. ‘This is what you get.’
‘Here.’ She hesitates a moment then takes the extra twenty.
Moments later I am pressing my ear to the door of Lilly Winter’s old flat. The peculiar silence of an empty home. Evidently, the place has yet to be assigned a new tenant, which means that the keys probably haven’t been changed. I’ll wake Gloria if I have to but I’d rather not have to explain myself. No one around. The window? I grasp at the frame from underneath, willing the hinge to give. Five minutes later, my fingertips reddened and sore, I give up. It is the darkest hour of the night now, the hour before dawn, and I’m cold, but wired too, no longer doing battle with my inhibitory circuits. The central executive in my brain has bypassed the drugs and moved beyond them. My mind toggles between its task-positive and task-negative networks. Daydreaming. Thought fragments begin to surface like bubbles of air on the skin of a dark pool. Finally, I can think. I ring on Gloria’s doorbell.
A light goes on somewhere at the back of Gloria’s flat then flips off. I press the bell again, this time in sharp staccato bursts that are impossible to ignore. The light returns and there are heavy footsteps in the hallway, followed by Gloria’s voice, still thick with sleep, saying, ‘Go away now!’
‘It’s Caitlin Lupo. We met.’
Silence, followed by the sound of a sliding bolt, the door cracking open on its chain.
Gloria sucks her teeth. ‘I remember. You sleepwalking, lady? Go home.’
‘My daughter’s in trouble.’
The eyebrows rise, the lips a thin line. She doesn’t want to deal with me but mention of my daughter has set off something. She checks about, sees nothing. The chain rattles and the door swings open and there’s Gloria in a red and orange onesie.
‘Can I come in?’
The flat is spotless and awash with gewgaws – little pieces of embroidery, family photos and reminders of home. I’m shown into a tiny living room and instructed to sit while Gloria disappears into the kitchen to make tea, reappearing moments later.
‘You want to say why you do this middle-of-night scandal?’
‘I’m trying to protect my daughter.’
‘Why protect?’
She hands me a small glass etched with vine leaves. Weak black tea swirling in the cup, a tiny slice of lemon.
‘At the funeral you told me there was something strange about Ruby Winter.’
Gloria’s eyes flare. She sits back and crosses her arms over her chest. ‘You come here in pyjamas in middle of night for this? Why are you bothering me? You know this girl.’
‘But what do you know, Gloria?’
Her eyes cut about. She looks at me, blinks twice, and then really looks at me. Gloria shrugs then she criss-crosses her palms in the air. ‘Ruby and Lilly, fighting, fighting. Always fighting.’ This is what I have come for. Gloria is an ally, a witness, someone who can attest to Ruby Winter’s unpredictability, her potential dangerousness. Gloria goes on: ‘Maybe this sound bananas, but the mother die and the girl…’ She tails off but her meaning is clear.
‘I’m beginning to think that way too.’ I tell her about the wet towels, the batteries.
Gloria is silent for a moment, not knowing what to say.
I take a sip of tea. Gloria refills the glass. I reach for it again but clumsily, almost knocking it over. A brief return of the drug fugue. Gloria is stroking her chin now, thinking. I blink and shake my he
ad to rid myself of the fog.
‘I want to take another look at the boiler. Can you let me in?’
Gloria thinks about this, though not for long. She’s already decided to co-operate. ‘First put on some clothes. I have a few things. Maybe they look better on you, but probably not.’
She disappears into her bedroom. While I’m waiting, I take out my new phone and plug the charger into the wall then I punch Sal’s number into Gloria’s landline.
Sal answers after the second ring. Evidently, she is already awake and has been expecting to hear from me. So they know I have escaped and Tom has called Sal hoping that’s where I’ve gone. No chance.
The words tumble out with barely a breath between. ‘Thank God. We’re out of our minds with worry, Tom is going spare. I was going to go over there and mind the girls while he went looking for you but the cab was stopped at the bridge, the roads are all jammed up, no one’s going anywhere.’
I wait for some dead air. ‘Listen, Sal, I’m OK. But I want you to promise me something. I want you to pack a bag and, as soon they open the bridges, I want you to go over to Dunster Road and stay for a few days. Keep an eye on Freya. Just until I get back.’
There’s a pause while this sinks in, then Sal starts up again, only this time her voice has an edge to it. ‘Cat, you’re scaring me. Where are you? What the hell’s going on?’
‘I’m fine. Really. But I need you to look after my daughter and make sure she’s safe.’
‘Freya’s not safe? Why? Cat, you’re not making sense.’
‘Please, Sal, just do it.’
Lilly Winter’s flat is as it was when I came to pick up Ruby’s things: filthy and smelling of cigarettes. It’ll take a lot to make this fit for new tenants. The boiler cover comes away in my hands, revealing the mess of valves and soldered piping. A concertina flue leaves the top of the unit and a U-bend connects to the outside vent. I take a kitchen knife from the drawer and unscrew the inner cover over the pilot light. No obvious signs of tampering. Next the flue. By hoisting myself up onto the kitchen counter and unscrewing the flue from the wall, I get a view through the tubing all the way back down into the machine. No blockage.
Gloria’s face appears around the door.
‘Didn’t you tell me Lilly Winter usually slept with the window open?’
‘Yes. One of her boyfriend fix screw so window only open a little way.’ Gloria draws a line in the air between the middle finger and thumb of her right hand. ‘For secure. From then, Lilly have the window open little bit all the time.’
‘But on the night she died the window was closed.’
‘Yes, also no. I went by after church, is open. Loud, loud music. But police say the window closed when they find her.’
‘Did you tell the police it had been open earlier in the evening?’
Gloria’s face darkens. ‘What are you? Bad in head? People open windows, close windows. Anyway, I told you, police business is not my business. What kind trouble you in, anyway, lady?’
‘I’m just trying to protect my daughter.’
‘From who? The girl?’
Not answering is its own answer.
‘You know, I have daughter too, her name Elmira,’ Gloria goes on. ‘My ex take her to Albania. It was four years ago. I have been to find but he doesn’t let me see, or even talk. He is fierce man.’
‘You miss her.’ Not a question.
‘Each second,’ Gloria says, poking out the seconds with her finger. ‘I tell you something. The afternoon that boiler man was here, it was hot like Kosovo summer. This man is standing on the walkway smoking, red like pepper. I fetch him cool drink. So we talk a little. He is Albanian from Tirana, not Kosovar like me. His name Ani.’
It’s not much but it’s more than I’ve had so far. And there may be more. I reach out and grasp her arm in my hand. ‘Thank you. Do you have a number for him? An address?’
Gloria stiffens and pulls away. ‘We should go now.’
I follow her out. At the doorway, she makes a right turn and moves towards her front door, then, turning to me, says suddenly, ‘Sunday. I will see. Call me at the end of today. For now, I am sleeping one hour more, because a crazy woman is knocking in the middle of the night and looking like shit in my clothes. Is all too much.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Perhaps by now the police are looking for me, an unhinged woman with a history of mental illness who has attacked a little girl. Perhaps they think I am dangerous. Perhaps I am.
Eleven years ago, thickly pregnant, my mind tumbled through a surreal world of my own invention. Because that’s what psychosis feels like. I became a pioneer of a country only I could ever map. But then, not long afterwards, I gave birth and I came back from that country and I re-entered the world.
I came back.
Now I sit in a bus shelter and wait out the night and make my plans.
Dawn comes dressed in dove grey. The cafe opposite opens up. I go over and get a cup of tea then wait till seven thirty to call my assistant Claire’s mobile. She sounds surprised but pleased to hear my voice.
‘Did you get caught up in the riots? I just walked through Brixton. It looked like a plane had fallen out of the sky. No bodies, thank God, but wreckage everywhere.’ Sirens are increasingly drowning out her voice. ‘I’ll just go somewhere quieter!’ There is a pause, the city’s new theme tune has faded out, and Claire is speaking again, her voice coarse and half whispered.
‘Is this about Joshua Barrons? I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell you, but I thought you might have heard anyway.’
‘About Joshua?’
‘Yes. Anja discharged him. Though to be fair, I think MacIntyre pressured her. A ploy to keep the father sweet. In any case, Anja seems to have got her reward for caving in. MacIntyre has made her acting head of the clinic.’
Shit. All that time. All that persuasion. All that work. And now this. Rees Spelling comes to mind.
‘Have you spoken to Emma?’
‘A couple of times. She says Joshua’s got worse. She wants him back in treatment. You couldn’t call her, could you? I think she needs all the support she can get.’ There’s a pause. ‘This isn’t why you called, though, is it?’
I now have a hundred and forty pounds in my pocket, scarcely enough to buy me a bed for the night in a hotel in London.
‘No, I called about me.’
‘Oh?’ Claire’s voice brightens. ‘Are you coming back?’
‘Not yet. Listen, this might sound off-key but I need somewhere to hang out. And maybe stay for a night or two?’ On the streets I’m vulnerable and not only because of the riots. The police may well be looking for me.
The words hang momentarily in the air then Claire makes a small coughing sound. ‘Oh my God. Of course.’ She rattles off an address in one of the shabbier streets running from the South Circular. There’s a bike shed. At the back on the left a short end of pipe. A Ziploc bag containing Claire’s spare key is stuffed inside.
‘Can I borrow a few clothes? Joggers and a T-shirt will do.’ I’m still dressed in Gloria’s cast-offs, sparkly leggings and a top that’s far too big for me.
‘Help yourself. There should be some clean stuff in my bedroom. Nothing in the fridge, though, sorry.’
‘Thank you. For saying yes and for not asking why. And, Claire? Please don’t mention any of this to anyone. Not to the police. Not even to Tom if he calls you.’
The key to Claire’s flat is where she said it would be. The lock to the front door of the communal parts is sticky and takes a moment of fiddling around, but the pins give after a few tries and, in moments, I find myself inside a narrow passageway smelling of dust and cheap carpet. Two floors up is a tiny, spartan one-bedder but it’s neat and clean, much like Claire herself. This is how young people survive in the city now. They live in tiny hutches with ludicrous rents in dodgy, distant neighbourhoods on maxed-out credit cards. The only thing they own in greater quantity than their parents, other than debt, is technology.
>
In Claire’s bedroom there are a pair of black leggings and a grey T-shirt. I peel off Gloria’s cast-offs and shower away the night then go into the kitchen and empty the small carrier bag of provisions I bought from a shopkeeper who’d been up all night guarding his shop. A cup of tea and a bowl of cereal later, overwhelmed by tiredness, I slide onto the sofa and feel myself very quickly vanishing into sleep. I wake with Freya on my mind and tap in Sal’s number on the new phone.
‘Cat?’ Sal sounds anxious and uncharacteristically chilly. ‘Where are you? Whose phone is this?’
‘Can I speak to Freya?’
Ignoring the question, Sal says, ‘Look, I’m at Dunster Road. I managed to persuade a minicab to take me. Cost a fortune.’ She sounds anxious. ‘Tom’s told the girls that you’ve gone to hospital to get better.’
‘Is Freya there?’
A pause follows. When my sister speaks again her voice is soft and with a quiet, unfamiliar authority. ‘I don’t know all the details about what went on last night, but the police have been round and you can’t come back.’
‘What? Dunster Road is my home. I pay the bloody mortgage.’
‘It’s called a DV something.’
‘Domestic violence?’
‘Yeah, a DV Protection Notice. You need to go down to Brixton police station so they can serve you in person. If you don’t, they’ll issue a warrant for your arrest. In any case, you have to keep away from the house and the family right now. Tom is taking the girls to his father’s place for a few days to get them out of London. They’re upstairs packing. Please, Cat, go down to the station and get yourself booked.’
