by Ros Reines
Ros Reines earned the title of the gossip columnist they can’t silence throughout a writing career which spans over twenty years. Her weekly column in The Sunday Telegraph is the best-loved gossip column in Australia. She lives in Bondi.
To my late father, Max, who gave me a love of reading; to my mother, Georgina, who helped me to appreciate glamour; and to my son, Joel, who inspires me every day.
This is a work of fiction. While a number of real life celebrities are referred to by name in this book, there is no suggestion that any of them were actually involved with any activity or event described in it. All other characters in this book are purely fictional and readers must not assume that any of the events within it are based on actual facts or real people.
First published in 2015
Copyright © Ros Reines 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 76011 047 5
eISBN 978 1 74343 981 4
Typeset by Bookhouse, Sydney
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Acknowledgements
Prologue
London, 11 April 1981
What do you wear to a riot?
This was the question that was taxing Selma and I as we sat in the kitchen of Selma’s Ladbroke Grove flat. Lost in thought, I gazed at the huge poster of a tropical beach scene, which took up almost an entire wall in an attempt to distract from the grungy surroundings. Where was this paradise? Copacabana, Montego Bay, Koh Samui . . . Palm Beach? For a moment I thought longingly of those fragrant, balmy nights in the Sydney I had left behind where it was possible to run around half naked without getting frostbite. London seemed so perpetually bleak and dank that sometimes I felt like an extra in David Copperfield: The Movie. It was a good thing the city had other things going for it; if I’d stayed in Sydney working as a reporter in our local paper, the Eastern Digest, I never would have been able to get a start as a music writer, I reminded myself. And who knew? Maybe a career as a mainstream journalist in Fleet Street awaited. Coming up with a good story on the riots could be the key—which brought me back to our dilemma: what to wear . . .
‘Do you want another cup of tea?’ Selma asked, fossicking around in a container filled with strange-looking herbal concoctions. ‘It might clear our heads.’
A rounded ball of energy with soft brown curls kept in check by her ever-present Bolivian bowler hat, Selma had gentle green eyes and a penchant for smocked tops layered over Indian skirts from Portobello market. The queen of layering, she combined Indian scarves, African belts, Afghani slippers and multiple necklaces in a manner that made her look fashion forward and not as though she had lost her mind or had run amuck in a gypsy caravan. We were besties—even though we had radically different styles; I still had the same look as when I had disembarked at Southampton two years ago. I was just twenty-one years old then and was very proud of my Jag jeans, my bright green fake fur from Gasworks in Rowe Street and my silver platform heels. I hadn’t changed my dark shoulder-length hair since primary school, but the lack of humidity in London had rendered it less curly.
Selma and I had met several months earlier when we’d both attended a Billy Joel press reception in the Grosvenor House hotel. I had gone along to the event more out of curiosity than a burning desire to see Billy Joel in the flesh. While most of the newspaper journalists had rushed back to their desks to file the copy, I had lingered at the generous buffet table, which was where I encountered Selma in her full regalia. I admired her style straight away and we discovered as we piled our plates high with smoked Scottish salmon, oysters and slabs of Stilton that we both liked food more than we liked Billy Joel.
‘A cup of tea? Nah, I think I might have had a bit too much of it already,’ I said, casting a sly glance at the bottle of red wine resting tantalisingly on her kitchen bench.
Selma followed my eyes. ‘You want to start drinking before we go to cover the riot, Savannah?’ she said in disbelief. ‘Do you really think that’s a good idea?’
‘It might steady our nerves,’ I said lamely. Actually, I was hoping that after a couple of drinks Selma might forget this insane idea of going all the way to Brixton in the middle of the night. The thought of inserting myself into the midst of a mob of angry black youths and even more choleric cops was no longer as appealing as it had been twenty minutes ago, when Selma had called.
‘Brixton is burning,’ she had announced dramatically, ‘and we should go and cover it.’
‘But we’re music journalists,’ I pointed out.
There was silence on the other end of the line. ‘We can see which reggae musicians are caught up in the crossfire,’ she said stiffly, clearly displeased by my lack of enthusiasm for our assignment.
‘Okay,’ I had agreed, my superhero gene immediately kicking in. I had a mental picture of myself, notebook at the ready, fearlessly stepping through scenes of cataclysmic destruction to interview reggae stars in dimly lit doorways. This could be the breakthrough story that would propel me from Replay’s offices in Old Compton Street, Soho, to The Daily Mail or, better still, The Guardian. I hung up the phone, grabbed my newly purchased Biba black leather jacket to wear over my jeans and a jumper, stuffed my notebook and tape recorder into my trusty fringed shoulder bag and tossed in my make-up purse as well. (It always paid to be prepared.)
But now the adrenalin rush had deserted me and I felt almost drowsy in the warm fug of Selma’s kitchen. Attending a riot seemed like an unhealthy way to end an evening. What if a burning wall collapsed on us or we ended up in the police cells and no one came to bail us out? Both of our editors were hard to rouse at the best of times, and Selma’s mum lived out of town in Kent. Plus, how the hell were we going to afford a lawyer to represent us when we often had trouble paying the rent between pay cheques? It seemed to me that we would be much safer following the Brixton riots on the television news and then trying to interview the local musicians on the phone. But then perhaps I was soft? To be honest, I wasn’t that committed to reggae but the simple rhythms were easy to dissect and, besides, when I had presented myself at Replay’s ramshackle headquarters, all of the other musical genres had been taken by the more established music writers. Selma took an academic approach—she was interested in music as a vehicle for social change. The Brixton riots would be a perfect example
of this, she said, and would influence black lyrics for years to come.
Selma’s hands were in the vicinity of the corkscrew and the unopened bottle of red wine but, disappointingly, she reached for the radio dial instead.
‘Hundreds of police have converged on South Lambeth in London,’ said a radio announcer in the clipped voice typical of the BBC. ‘This follows on from the stabbing of a black youth, who has been identified as a local resident, Michael Bailey. Crowds are assembling at the scene of the incident. So far the casualty count has included over one hundred police and around forty-five members of the public, with the violence escalating in the last hour. There are unconfirmed reports of buildings being set on fire.’
Selma and I rushed to turn on the television news, which showed footage of the Special Patrol Group marching towards the crowds in a blaze of helmets, batons and shields. Brixton seemed to be on a war footing.
Going into battle was not exactly how I’d pictured my evening playing out when I’d been sitting on the couch catching up on some back issues of Replay. But Selma was determined. Admittedly, her street cred was way better than mine. She’d been writing about black music for years for the well-respected weekly magazine Face Off, and was now a contributing editor. Selma’s theory was that to write successfully about alternative cultures, you had to live and breathe it. You also had to look the part. Right now neither of us seemed very convincing as edgy commentators. We looked more like professional sloths.
She walked purposefully to the hat rack in the hallway and tossed a Che Guevara beret at me.
I studied it in horror. ‘Ah, I think I need something more substantial, Selma. I don’t know how Che managed it but a beret can leave you feeling awfully exposed.’ (What I was really hoping for was a crash helmet.)
‘No, it’s perfect,’ she said as she headed into her bedroom. ‘You’ll look like you mean business. Just put your hair into a ponytail and you’ll become a woman warrior. Awoah!’
Sighing, I put the beret on, making a mental note not to answer my phone after a certain time of the night in future to avoid getting myself in situations as potentially dangerous as this one. I could be tucked right up in bed now counting Jamaican goats.
‘Here, wind this around your neck,’ Selma said, emerging from her room with a mushroom-coloured scarf for me and a red and black one for herself. We also looped a couple of Afghani necklaces over our chests like warrior’s armour. I looked at myself doubtfully in her full-length mirror. Was this really what one wore to a riot?
‘How are we going to get there?’ I asked, hoping this might be a stumbling block.
‘Hmm, good question. Not the Tube; they’ve probably shut down the line to stop troublemakers coming in from outside to join in,’ she said thoughtfully.
I felt hope dawning. We couldn’t take the Tube, there was no direct bus from Ladbroke Grove to Brixton and surely no cabbies would be silly enough to take us. We couldn’t very well walk to the riots—by the time we got there it would be all over . . .
I was feeling quite relieved now. With any luck I could be home in bed in half an hour, tops. I was just envisioning putting my head down on the pillow when I noticed that Selma was busy on the phone.
‘Hi, is that Horace?’ she asked with the receiver propped under her chin as she tried to cram a packet of biscuits and some fruit into her shoulder bag. (Even on the front line a gal has to eat.) ‘Savannah and I need a ride to Brixton. Do you have anyone available?’
I held my breath, hoping that common sense would prevail and that Horace was not so hard up for cash that he would consider sending one of his drivers out in the middle of the night to go to riot-torn Brixton.
‘Yes, I know there is a riot, Horace,’ Selma was saying testily. ‘That’s why we need to be there. We have to cover it.’ A pause. ‘You’ll send someone? Thank you!’
I was out of luck.
‘This is as far as I’ll go.’ The minicab driver screeched to a halt on a derelict street corner. Turning around he put his hand out for the twenty-five quid Selma had promised.
‘So what time can you pick us up from here?’ she asked, holding the money just out of reach of his large, sweaty fist.
‘Are you joking? I’m not coming back. I’m going home to my wife and children. They need me in one piece.’ He was revving the motor, ready to turn around and get the hell out of there.
‘I’ll pay you thirty quid,’ pleaded Selma.
‘Nothing doing.’ He snatched the money out of her hand and leaned back to open the door for us.
Reluctantly, I left the safe cocoon of our wheels. Almost at once a gang of youths, yelling obscenities, rounded the corner towards us. They were pitching stones at the police who were in pursuit.
‘Oh shit!’
For a couple of seconds, we stood stock still and then the adrenalin kicked in and we began to run. I had been hoping to find the police command post, show our National Union of Journalists cards, then join the rest of the media pack ensconced behind some kind of barricade. If we waited long enough, I thought, surely we’d spot someone we knew from the music scene who would give us an original way into the story. But now I knew how naive I’d been; there was no police media liaison unit to point us in the right direction and tell us where we could find mugs of teas and phones to dictate our copy: this was chaos.
For over an hour we did nothing but run. We’d sprint in one direction only to be forced back as another phalanx of police advanced towards us. The police force’s tactics were clear—they wanted to tire everyone out so they would eventually give up. Selma and I were no athletes and we were soon exhausted. Everything was happening so fast there was no opportunity to do any sort of interview with the people running alongside us because we seemed to have joined them—we had become part of the mob.
‘We’ve got to let the cops know somehow that we’re media,’ yelled Selma. ‘I don’t know how long I can keep this up for.’
‘Why don’t we get out of here and just phone police HQ?’ I suggested, but the time had passed for that. From somewhere nearby we could hear glass shattering and the sickening swoosh of fire as a group of rioters lobbed handmade grenades at the police. It was the end of the world, Armageddon had arrived, and now we really were running for our lives.
‘I think Pee Wee lives over there,’ Selma yelled as we pounded down a dark street towards a big block of council flats. ‘He’s on the top floor. C’mon!’
We veered away from the crowd and ran breathlessly up the stairs, hearts pounding with fear and adrenalin.
And then—oh joy—we spied a slight figure with long dreadlocks almost down to his waist and a red leather waistcoat over his jeans on the narrow balcony. Pee Wee, an English Jamaican filmmaker and dub poet, had come out of his flat with a video camera to film the destruction of his neighbourhood.
‘Pee Wee!’ I screamed. ‘Oh my god, I’m so happy to see you.’
Unfortunately, our presence did not seem to please him in the slightest.
‘Quiet!’ He regarded us grimly before returning to his filming. ‘Don’t you understand how dangerous it is for me here? Babylon will come down hard if they see me documenting all this.’
Selma wasn’t worried. She barged in through the door of his apartment and collapsed in a heap on the threadbare red velvet sofa, which was covered in red, green and gold woollen throws. I sank down next to her. Despite the old mugs which appeared to be stuck to the coffee table and the stained cushions, this safe haven seemed luxurious.
‘What are we going to do now?’ I asked Selma when my breathing had returned to normal. ‘We don’t really have enough to write about yet and I don’t know how the hell we’re going to get out of here tonight.’
‘We have to go back out there,’ Selma decided. ‘Let’s split up so we’re not noticeable, and see what we can gather on our own. We could meet back here and then maybe Pee Wee could drive us home.’
‘Sure.’ As frightened and exhausted as I was, I was determined to
prove that I was not just playing at being a fearless scribe to my best friend who really was one. Selma was already making copious notes in the pad she had produced from her handbag; no doubt she would later pen beautiful, poetic copy that would make my own reports read like a laundry list. At least I’d thought of a possible lead: ‘Brixton riots stoked London’s furnace of discontent, lit by Molotov cocktails and the searing anger of black youths with no future.’ Not so bad, really—as absolutely terrifying as it was on the streets, maybe this was my moment to prove myself.
‘Okay, let’s get out there,’ said Selma, snapping shut her notebook just as Pee Wee came back inside. He looked seriously rattled, which for a man who prided himself on being chilled, was quite alarming.
‘Brixton is being ripped apart,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe you two were in the middle of it. You don’t belong here.’
He was totally on the money, of course.
‘I’m going back out there,’ said Selma. ‘I need to see if anyone will talk to me.’
‘Are you mad?’ protested Pee Wee, striking his head in disbelief. ‘You should be lying low and not venturing out till the morning when everything has cooled down.’
‘Nah, I’ll be fine. See you back here in an hour. Savannah, if anyone stops you, just show them your NUJ card.’
Pee Wee watched her go in disbelief. ‘Blood clot, that woman is asking for a beating. I need a cup of tea. You want one?’
I did actually, but I knew I couldn’t just sit around drinking tea while Selma was out gathering material for a potentially career-changing story.
‘I think I’d better get out there too,’ I told Pee Wee. ‘I might as well get it over and done with so that I can go home and get some sleep.’
He regarded me curiously for a couple of minutes as I gathered my belongings. I took off the Che beret and shoved it in my shoulder bag; I had felt like a goose wearing it. The necklaces came off as well—no sense in jingling as I ran.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Pee Wee decided, pulling on a battered brown leather jacket. He grabbed his video camera and wound the strap around his arm. I caught a flash of something glinting in his hand, and realised he was shoving a flick-knife into the pocket of his jeans. It sent chills up my spine.
