by Tobias Hill
High-rises loom up ahead. In the side alleys Bengali children play out the last dog days of their summer. I pass Ki Wi Fashions – up to BIG SIZES, the shop selling saris at wholesale prices. Outside BAJWA & Co. Immigrant Lawyers, Est. 1983 I stop and check the A to Z. On its intricate, colourless pages Slipper Street is just around the next corner.
I look up again and find it makes no sense in the world around me. There is no corner for anything to be around. In the place Slipper Street should be there is a space between tower blocks. An empty bench. A council sign: NO DOGS NO BALLGAMES. Three magpies squat on the worn grass.
The street atlas is open in my hands. I flip it shut. On the title page, under Edith’s signature, are the publication details. This is the 1973 edition. The high-rises in front of me are ugly, prematurely aged. I walk around them twice, and when I’m sure of my own idiocy I sit down on the bench where Slipper Street used to be and swear myself wretched.
Dock traffic goes past towards Limehouse. There are words carved on the bench between my legs. Street names inscribed in a hard-lined script. The graffiti have spread to a cluster of municipal bins beyond the bench. I throw the atlas in and make myself look up at the high-rises.
Every floor is like every other. Nothing is different except the colour of curtains. From here, the inhabitants are reduced to a code of nets and blinds. Between the blocks there are abandoned shops and a pub, the Royal Duke, its lone Victorian building boarded up and burnt out long ago. Across the road is its replacement, a flat-roofed construction in shit-yellow brick. A plastic banner is draped across the brickwork with an image of a playing card queen and a legend: The Royal Duchess, Karaoke every Thursday, Another Whitbread Public House. When the traffic lets me I go across and inside.
The room is done up with exposed roofbeams and an airport lounge carpet, as if floor and ceiling exist in different centuries. A fat television is suspended between the beams. On it, three horses are coming down the final straight at Leopardstown. Beyond them, the commentator’s voice rises to its dry, adrenal climax.
‘Very nice! Very nice.’ Behind the bar is a man with red hair and freckled skin. Chewing-gum clicks as he grins, first at the horses, then at me. ‘Very nice. What can I get you, madam?’
‘A bottle of beer.’
‘Gottle of geer? Becks or Holstein?’
‘Whichever’s colder.’
‘One-ninety either way.’ He goes to the refrigerated cabinet while I sort out the money. My pockets are still full of dollars. Their green backs and eyed pyramids stare up from the bar and I crumple them away.
The barman watches me drink, grunts an acknowledgement. ‘There. Looks like you needed that. Can I get you anything else? Pork scratchings?’
‘No. Thanks.’ He’s wearing a lilac Fred Perry shirt, the sleeves revealing thick forearms. A segmented metal watch, gold or imitation gold, a kind of medallion timepiece. A gold sovereign ring with the elder Victoria showing. East End white flash. I put the bottle down. ‘You might be able to do me a favour, though.’
‘Oh yeah.’ He modulates the intonation. The words become half-question, half-jibe. ‘And how might I do that?’
‘I’m looking for a place called Slipper Street. I know–’
‘Slipper Street? Heh heh. Hear that, Nev?’ He shouts past me. The gum clicks and clicks. ‘Nev? Lady wants to know how to find Slipper Street.’
Nev comes over. He looks like an older and more modest version of the barman. He has a bird tattoo on the back of each hand. Swallows, the inkwork dispersed with age. ‘Slipper Street, love? Right then, ready? You go out of here, across the road, then’ – he motions like a drowning man doing doggy paddle – ‘dig down fifteen feet. First right at the water mains, you can’t miss it.’
They cackle together. The barman starts cleaning glasses. ‘Slipper Street’s gone, love. Went in, what, seventy-nine, eighty. See all that across the road? That lot’s on top of Slipper Street.’
‘What about the people who lived there?’
He shrugs at Nev. The older man clears his throat. ‘Well now. Most of them got rehoused. There was old folks in the streets round here what hadn’t gone out of doors for years. Now they’re fifteen flights up and frightening the pigeons. There’s whole streets up there what used to be next-door neighbours. Now they’re up-and-downers. The ones who’re still alive, anyway. Why?’
‘I’m looking for someone called Pyke.’
He shrugs. ‘Don’t know the name. But to tell you the truth, I didn’t grow up round here, so I wouldn’t necessarily know. If you come back tonight, though, the regulars can tell you for definite. Shame they ain’t in yet.’
‘Hold on, I’ll tell you what…’ On the television, the horse racing gives way to an advertisement for pantyliners. The barman picks up a remote control and mutes the volume. ‘What about the caretaker, Nev?’
‘What about him?’
‘He’d know, wouldn’t he? He was in here talking about it the other day, how they’ve given him a computer now. Just in case someone comes round checking things, council tax or DSS. You’re not tax, are you, love?’
‘No. I’m just–’
‘No, you don’t look it. What’s his name, Nev? Henry something.’
‘Henry. He’s a prat. Couldn’t count up to twenty-one without getting his todger out. What do you want to send her round to him for? She should stay in here. Regulars will be in soon.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Nev, it’s only half-eleven now. They won’t be in for about five hours, will they? What’s she going to do till then?’
‘She can come and have a drink with me.’
‘Oh yeah?’ He looks at Nev. His intonation is neutral again. I pick my bag off the airport lounge carpet. They both look at it.
‘There, you see?’ The barman grins again. The gum is pressed between his teeth, pink and baroque as a conch pearl. ‘She’s in a hurry. She needs to see Henry. He’s all right. Tell him we sent you over from the Duchess and he’ll be good as gold.’
He gives me directions. I walk back across the Commercial Road to the estate. The caretaker’s office is under the tower blocks, built of the same dark brick as the high-rises above it. I press the buzzer and wait. The area around me is unlit and damp as space underground. Graffiti crawls over itself on the pillars, blue and gold, bright as the mineral scripts of illuminated manuscripts.
The intercom clicks open. A man’s voice coughs through the static. I lean towards the mouthpiece. It smells of urine, as if – with considerable viciousness and athletic precision – someone has pissed six feet up the wall into its grille. It strikes me that Nev isn’t the only one with an energetic dislike of Henry. ‘Hello. My name’s Katharine Sterne. I’m looking for someone who might live here. Are you Henry?’
In the pause that follows I can hear music, a radio playing in the locked office before the voice blocks it out again. ‘Hello?’
I put my face as near to the intercom as I can stand and shout into it. ‘Nev sent me.’
‘Nev? Fuck him and his mother and his mother’s mother.’ The intercom goes dead. I go over to the door and bang on it until it opens. The man inside is short and overweight with a blue uniform and a St Christopher’s medal around his red neck. The skin of his face and neck is engorged, capillaries traced out like a street atlas. A13, A1202. I can’t tell if the effect is temporary or permanent. He looks straight past me and talks before I can.
‘Where is he? Tell him to clear off, the waster. Who are you?’
‘My name’s Katharine Sterne.’ ‘What are you, DSS?’
‘Nothing like that. In the Duchess they said you might help me.’ He hasn’t closed the door yet. I shut up and wait while he looks me over. He smells of chips and vinegar, and beyond him in the clutter of the office I can see a packet of them open on the desk, a thermos waiting.
‘Who said that? Nev? Fucking fat titch. He doesn’t know a fucking thing.’ He is hunched forward into the dark, one hand on the door both to keep me out and
to support his own weight. The troll under the bridge. Billygoats gruff.
‘Actually, it was the barman.’
‘Mickey.’ His face settles, the glare relaxing fractionally into a grimace.
‘I’m here on personal business. I’m looking for a friend of my grandfather’s.’
‘Are you now?’
‘Mickey said you have a list of residents.’
‘Did he now? Quite the expert on me, isn’t he? Did he also tell you I was having my tea?’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll pay…’ Already the caretaker is turning back inside.
‘Too bloody right you will. Close that door behind you.’
I close it. It doesn’t lock. The caretaker’s office smells of chips and cleaning fluids. The radio is tuned to an easy-listening station. There are half a dozen calendars on the wall, Pirelli, Playboy, Millwall Football Club. All of them are current, with the same notations and days ringed on each. Henry pulls two office chairs up to the desk, moves the thermos and turns on the computer behind it. I stay where I am. I’m taller than him, and quicker. All the same.
‘The name’s Pyke. With a “y”.’
‘Initial?’
‘I don’t know.’
His fingers hover over the keyboard. ‘Male or female?’
‘All I have is the name.’
He peers round. ‘This is a family friend we’re looking for, is it?’
I don’t answer. He types ‘PYKE’ anyway. The computer only takes a second. The office chair grunts as Henry sits back. ‘Pyke. George. I know him. Crusty old bastard. Sound like the kind of friend you’re looking for?’
‘Do you know if he lived here before the redevelopment?’
‘No. But old folks round here tend to stay put. The foreigners with money, they’re the ones who move out, get detached, front gardens at the end of the Tube lines. Right, 117 Pitsea. That’s the west tower on the Commercial Road side of the estate. Eleventh floor. You’ll be glad to hear the lift is working.’ He glares back. ‘The chips cost me twenty quid.’
I give him the money. He sees me to the door and points me in the right direction. The Pitsea tower is directly opposite the Duchess. In the entrance lobby is a plaque commemorating the building of the estate in 1980. There are three lifts and two of them are broken. The remaining one shudders upwards in its metal well.
At the tenth floor it stops dead and I walk the last two flights of stairs. There is nothing in the miles of corridors except the sound of people behind closed doors. The chatter of a television, the hiss of food frying.
The door to flat 117 is like all the others, institutionalised, steel plate at foot level, eyehole at head height. I only have to knock twice. It takes some time for the person on the other side to open it.
‘George Pyke?’
‘Yes.’ He is both very old and very large. His eyes are blue and slightly protuberant in a way that doesn’t make him less handsome. He is wearing a beige cardigan and cords, the clothes loose on his square frame, as if he was bigger when they were bought for him. Polished oxblood brogues. He is alone in his own home and his shoes are polished. I wonder who he keeps them ready for. I know he is alone. I recognise it in his face.
He screws up his eyes. ‘I don’t know you, do I?’
‘No. My name’s Katharine Sterne.’ I put out my hand. He shakes it as if he were wringing out a dishcloth.
‘Pleased to meet you. Local elections, is it?’
‘No. I work in jewels–’
He starts to nod. ‘And you saw the advert. You’re a bit late. Most of it was gone months ago, but come on in anyway. No sense in wasting a journey. Would you like tea?’
I follow him in. Feeling my way and lost already. I have always been good at losing myself. ‘No, thanks. Did you get a good response to the advert?’
‘Oh, marvellous. Marvellous.’ His voice drifts back. ‘It was all best quality goods. I kept it all for as long as I could. Things have been a bit harder these last few years.’ The hallway smells of cabbages. The wallpaper is printed with roses.
‘Where were they from? The goods.’
‘Oh, family. That’s why I kept them so long. The way you do, with family things.’
I come out into the living room. There is a TV wrapped in baking foil, three sets of flying ducks on the walls. A smoked-glass coffee table, two worn armchairs by the gas fire. George’s voice echoes back from the kitchen.
‘But I can show you the last of it, if you like. Have you come far? Are you sure you don’t want tea, my dear? How about something cold?’ There is the sound of a fridge being opened as I sit down. ‘Oh. Would you like beer or Branston pickle? I’ve got both.’
‘Beer please.’
Above the fireplace is a row of photographs. I don’t have time to look at them before George comes back in with a tray. He sets it down on the coffee table, lowers himself into the seat opposite me, and smiles. His false teeth too big for him, like the clothes. ‘Collector yourself, are you?’
‘More or less.’
‘I see.’ He nods down at the tin tray. ‘There you go.’
There are two cans of beer and two glasses, a piece of jewellery and a loupe. I leave the beer. Bend forward over the lens. The jewel is pure gold, high carat. It is the size and shape of a plum and heavier, although the metal is hollow, a carved network of foliage, branches and birds. I shake it gently and something rattles inside. When I bring it closer to my face the smell of it is overpowering, and I have to pull away. George Pyke laughs like a drain.
‘Pongs, dunnit?’ He cracks open the beers and starts to pour, holding the glasses at an angle. There are liver spots on his hands. ‘It’s gold though. Old gold. Most of the stuff I had was silver.’
‘It’s a beautiful thing. How did it come to be in your family?’
‘It was my father’s.’
‘He worked in jewels?’
‘Not in so many words, no.’ He drinks. The froth catches on his lips. He dabs it away. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll give it to you for a hundred and eighty.’
‘No.’ I put the loupe down.
His face goes on smiling after he has stopped. ‘It’s worth that. I won’t take less.’
‘It’s worth more. This is a perfume harness. It’s Tudor. It was made to be worn round the neck, to keep away disease and pollution.’
‘Is that right?’
‘I think so. You need an auction house for this.’
‘What are you, some kind of expert?’
‘You’d get a better price in America or Japan.’
He sits back, the anger going out of him. ‘Japan? Well now, I never could travel much. Can’t stomach the food, you see. I never quite feel myself when I’m not eating right.’
I shake the harness again. ‘There’s something inside it, too. It could be musk, or ambergris–’
‘It’s a load of old cack. Pardon my French.’
‘No, it should be some kind of solid perfume. It’ll add to the value. It’s hard to tell what it is, the scent seems to be – where did your father get this?’
‘In a load of old cack. Heh. Smells of it because that’s where he found it. See that photo up on the mantelpiece? Get it down here. No, the steel frame – that’s it.’ I bring it down. George points, big-boned fingers smudging the steel. I can still hear him talking. The voice comes down to me from a distance. I hold the picture up to the light.
It is old, the glass plate treated with gelatin emulsion and, possibly, gallic acid. Edith would have known these things. Inside the steel frame there is only one human figure, a young man standing with arms held aloft. He is up to his ankles in low-tide mud. Behind him are the grey outlines of a bridge and the edge of a massive ashlar stone embankment. The Houses of Parliament beyond them, shadowy with smog. The man’s face is all smile. A mask of teeth. Triumphant, as if he has just swum across the Thames.
‘This was taken in 1909. That’s my father there. George Senior. He’s probably even younger there than what you
are now. He was a mudlark, you see. That’s what he did. What they used to do, they used to go down into the sewers. For the scavenging. Matter of fact, you could make quite a decent living out of it. Rope and scrap on your average day. Something better every blue moon. Now then. My old man was good at it. One of the best, marvellous. Oh, he used to find all kinds of things.’
It is a dark image. Hardly even black and white, since there is almost nothing lighter than slate-grey. The London sky is grimy, and the skin of the man is streaked with mud. Only his grin stands out, and the brightness of the object in his hands.
‘Silver spoons. I was raised on one. You wouldn’t know it, eh? He found them, see. A silver milk jug too, a quart pot. Three pounds he got for that. He said it was an art, mud-larking. A calling. You had to watch for the tides, he said. He didn’t half go on. You would of thought he was still mudlarking at fifty. But people knew his name, people who knew about the business. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew the old snickets of the sewers better than anyone. All the parts the Victorians never got round to rebuilding. Bazalgette. That was the name of the man who rebuilt it. Listen to me rabbit on, I’m as bad as he was. He’s been dead forty years. Forty-two. Younger than you, he is there.’
I don’t say anything. Against the protective glass my breath clouds and fades almost instantly, leaving no impression. The man in the photograph holds the object up in front of him. It is small as each hand that holds it. The quality of the image is too poor for the shape to be more than an outline. A triangle blurred by the intensity of its own brightness.
‘What’s that in his hands?’
“That? Oh, that’s a whole other story. You don’t want to get me–’
‘It’s the Brethren.’ I look up at him. ‘The Three Brethren.’
George Pyke starts to say something and stops himself. His eyes look out of place when he frowns, still hesitant. ‘Brothers. Three Brothers. That’s what he called it. You’re not here about the advert, are you?’
