Crazy Paving (10 page)

Her mother was watching television. Helly stormed past the sitting room door.

‘Helen!’ her mother called out.

‘
What?
’ said Helly. She had paused in the hall but did not go back to the doorway.

‘You’ve just missed your gran . . .’ Helly spelt the word ‘fuck’ with her lips. ‘She said she couldn’t stop. They were going out or something. They
brought a letter round. The kitchen table!’

On the kitchen table Helly found a letter on Capital Transport Authority headed notepaper, addressed to her grandparents. It came from Richard’s office but was signed officially by the
general manager of the property division. Beneath
Dear Mr and Mrs Appleton
were the words:
Rosewood Cottage, Sutton Street: Notice to Treat
.

It was her gran who persuaded her not to ask around at work openly. ‘Don’t get yourself into trouble,’ Joanna Appleton had said. ‘I only brought it round because you work
for them and I thought you could find out how long we’ve got. But don’t tell anyone you know us. It’ll make things tricky for you.’

Helly decided not to ask but for a different reason. By then, she was working out her own solution. By then, she knew that Richard was bent.

Benny loved horses. He dreamt of them nearly every night as he lay in fitful sleep in his car-tyre igloo in the works yard of Robinson Builders Limited. In Venezuela, he had
once performed a Caesarean section on a thoroughbred mare whose foal had not turned, saving the foal’s life. The tiny horse was healthy, beautiful, perfect. Señor de Angelinos had been
duly grateful. Benny’s future looked bright.

After a day or so, the mare began to sicken. The wound putrefied. Benny fought to save her but within a week the battle was lost. Señor de Angelinos sent two
campesinos
round to
break Benny’s legs, but he was out playing draughts at the Hotel Colon with his neighbour’s uncle. His brother Luis was in, so the
campesinos
broke his legs instead. Benny left
town.

When he first came to England he had sought work in the country, but the farmers thought he was a gypsy. Hunger forced him to London. Arthur Robinson had tripped over him as he huddled in a
railway arch in Kennington. Benny had stared up at the fat white man and fought with his pride. He had not eaten for three days and was filthy; still he could not bring himself to beg. Arthur
Robinson had looked down at the small proud Venezuelan and seen another opportunity to be adored. He took Benny into his yard, let him build the igloo, gave him work, saved his life. Benny was the
loyal type. While Benny was alive, Arthur Robinson could have no breathing enemies.

Now Benny was in another railway arch, this time in Deptford. He was at the end of Sutton Street. He was watching Rosewood Cottage. Benny did not know why Mr Robinson wanted the cottage watched,
but it was something to do with the smart-faced man who turned up once in a while. Benny could read faces. The smart man looked at him and thought that because he didn’t speak he
couldn’t understand. Benny’s English was fluent but in this wet grey city he had generally found it wise to keep that to himself. Benny sighed and withdrew a tube of Smarties from his
pocket. He flipped the plastic lid and tipped the last remaining few into his mouth. Eating sweets was a habit he had copied from Mr Robinson. It was ruining his teeth but visiting a dentist was
out of the question. Benny tossed the tube back into the arch disconsolately, peering out at the deserted street. It was windy and damp, although the rain had stopped. Benny sighed again. He had
been in England too long. It was an armpit of a country. An armpit.

Benny had been in the railway arch since four o’clock. His vigil was rewarded just after six p.m. A girl was strolling down Sutton Street, towards him. He withdrew into the shadows of the
arch. She had to be visiting the cottage. There was no other reason to come down Sutton Street, unless you had a body to bury. The girl had a bag slung over her shoulder but it wasn’t big
enough for a body and she was too small to carry one anyway. She was wearing a brown mini-skirt and a huge grey cardigan that swamped her and made her seem dwarfish. Her light brown hair was pulled
back into a long bunch that curled down her back. She was chewing something.

Benny watched the girl as she approached the cottage. She paused on the step and fumbled in her bag. Then she pulled out a bunch of keys and let herself in.

‘Come on you girls,’ Bob said, ‘get out of my kitchen.’ He eased past Helly who was seated on a tall stool by the fridge.

‘What are you cooking?’ she asked.

‘Fettucine al dogshit. Now get out of my way.’

Joanna tugged at Helly’s sleeve. ‘Come on Poops, let the Maestro do his stuff or we’ll be sending you out to the Deptford Tandoori.’

Helly and Joanna took their wine into the sitting room. They settled on the sofa and sipped for a moment, the silence companionable.

After a while, Helly asked casually, ‘Had any more visits from the Transport Authority?’

Joanna levelled her gaze at her granddaughter. ‘You know damn well we have. Don’t you?’

Helly looked up, wide-eyed. ‘Why do you say that?’

Joanna chuckled. ‘Listen, Poops. Your mum may fall for that but you can’t fool your mad old granny. We had some young fella round here last Wednesday telling us it’s been
suspended. Indefinitely.’

‘Just suspended? Not cancelled?’

‘Well, I don’t know. He said suspended in a way that sounded like cancelled but I wouldn’t trust those buggers as far as I could throw ’em. He said his name was Bennett.
Do you know him?’

Helly nodded. ‘William. New guy. Gets the dirty work.’

Joanna put down her wine glass and leant forward. She rested both her hands on Helly’s knees. ‘Poops, have you been up to something?’

Helly bit her lip.

‘Look, just tell me this. Is this going to get you in trouble? I don’t care what you do as long as you’re okay. We’re grateful of course, but the last thing I want is you
getting the boot.’

‘Gran, if I
was
up to something, don’t you think I’d cover myself?’ Helly took a sip of wine and sat back in her seat.

Joanna shook her head. ‘You’re a clever kid. Always were. But sometimes it isn’t enough to be clever, Poops. There are some people out there you can outwit and do you know what
they’ll do? Turn round and smack you in the gob, that’s what. I know you’ve had it tough with your mum, but you don’t know yet how tough some men can be . . .’

‘Oh
Gran
. . .’

‘I want you to promise me one thing. Just this one.’ Helly rolled her eyes. ‘Now listen, for once. Just promise me this: if you get in an argument with someone, you’ll do
it somewhere public, okay?’

‘Alright, Gran.’

‘I mean it love, please.’ Joanna’s face had become tense and sad. She leant forward. ‘Just don’t let yourself get cornered, that’s all.’

Helly put down her glass and grasped Joanna’s hands in hers. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

Joanna smiled. ‘You know as soon as your great-gran pops off you can have her room, don’t you?’

Helly returned the smile. ‘Oh come on. Nan Hawthorne isn’t going anywhere.’

‘How’s your mum?’

Helly bent and picked up her glass. ‘Same as ever.’

‘Joanna!’ Bob’s voice called from the kitchen.

‘What?’ Joanna called back.

Bob appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a plastic apron printed with the images of a lacy bra and lacy pair of knickers. He was holding a large wooden pepper mill. ‘Where did you put
the sun-dried tomatoes?’

The next morning, Helly woke on her grandparents’ sofa. She would have walked to New Cross and got the bus, but it was dark by the time they had finished Bob’s
fettucine and Joanna had insisted she stay the night. She had slept in one of Bob’s old shirts and her grey wool tights, under a sleeping bag they had dug out from the attic. The cottage had
no central heating. It was freezing.

The rest of her clothes lay in a heap on the armchair. She unbuttoned Bob’s shirt and pulled on her bra and T-shirt, then slipped into the brown mini-skirt she had been wearing the
previous day. Her huge grey cardigan lay on the floor like a slug.

Joanna was in the kitchen, dressed in a pink kimono, making tea.

‘You must be freezing,’ Helly said as she came in, running her hands through her hair and fastening it back with a band. ‘You didn’t need to get up, I can let myself
out.’

‘I’ve been awake since five,’ Joanna replied. ‘Didn’t you hear the racket?’

‘What racket?’

‘The wind. One hell of a noise, blowing half the street down, it sounded like. I don’t know what was going on.’ She opened the fridge door and lifted out a carton of orange
juice. ‘Here,’ she said as she passed it over. ‘If your hangover’s anything like mine you’ll need this.’

Benny had fallen asleep with his eyes still open just before dawn, crouched inside the railway arch, his head leaning against the brickwork. All night the wind had flung
rubbish at him; no rain, no thunder, no lightning, just whispered secrets one minute and shrieked demands the next.

He woke as Helly slammed the cottage door behind her. He watched as she made her way past, picking through debris from the skip which had scattered itself across the street in bizarre attitudes.
Then he stood up and stretched. He was stiff as hell and had run out of Smarties. He worked his shoulders backwards, trying to loosen up, then peered out at the sky: crisp, cold, a little smokey.
He pulled a face, then he slipped out of the railway arch and began to follow.

Joan awoke to the ringing of bells. There were several, all clanging frantically in different pitches, a small mad cacophany that seemed to be growing in a corner of her head.
She reached out a hand to touch the ‘off’ button on their bedside alarm. Her fingers brushed the plastic. The ringing didn’t stop. She struggled upright on one elbow and peered at
the alarm resentfully. It wasn’t making any noise at all. Nor was it showing the time. Her fingers scrambled for her watch. Eight fifteen: the alarm should have gone off over an hour ago.

Next to her, Alun stirred briefly, snuffled once into his pillow and continued to sleep. In the early days of their marriage, his shifts had caused problems. After all these years, they now
slept soundly through each other’s routines. Whenever Joan cooked dinner, she made a double portion and left the rest in an oven-proof dish in the fridge. The food always went, although she
would often not catch sight of Alun for days, other than as a bulk beneath the blankets, a heaviness that made the mattress slope, a male smell, a warmth.

She swung herself heavily out of bed and went to the window. The room felt cold. She placed a hand on the electric storage heater beneath the sill. It had not come on.

She pushed the curtain aside with one finger. The street below was in chaos. A wild wind was blowing a huge cardboard box down the road. It tripped and tumbled past a small ash tree which grew
opposite their house and was now snapped half-way down the trunk. The branches were whisking to and fro, blocking half the road. Number eight’s metal bin had blown over and several empty
catfood tins were pirouetting in mad swirls a foot above the pavement. The ringing sounds were coming from the direction of Denmark Hill – shop burglar alarms, several of them.

Joan went to the door and pulled her dressing-gown off the hook. She tied the belt as she went downstairs. In the hall, she dialled her neighbour’s number.

‘Lydia? It’s Joan. Have you got any electricity?’

Nobody in the street had electricity. It had gone down an hour and a half ago, setting off the alarms and causing mayhem. Lydia was surprised Joan had not woken earlier. She had been up half the
night with tiles slithering down her roof. She was worried sick about the chimney.

Joan ate cornflakes for breakfast and drank a small glass of orange squash. Then she splashed her face with cold water and dressed quickly, feeling cold and grimy. She was going to be terribly
late. She left a note for Alun in case he woke up and wondered what was going on.

Denmark Hill looked a riot. A tree and a signpost had come down and the police had cordoned off one side of the road. The burglar alarms were still ringing, some of them flashing like demented
Christmas decorations. She saw the red hulk of a bus stuck at the traffic lights and began to run. Half-way there, she realised the bus wasn’t moving. The traffic round the Green was blocked
solid. Some drivers had got out of their cars and were wandering around, shaking their heads.

As Joan approached, she could see that the bus platform was packed with passengers. There appeared to be a fairly high turnover; some were crowded round trying to get on while others were
crowded round trying to get off. As she got nearer she heard the conductor calling over their heads, ‘Vauxhall only. I’m only going as far as Vauxhall.’ A woman in a red mac was
standing in the road and questioning him. He was shaking his head. ‘You won’t get anything going over the bridge,’ he was telling her. ‘Nothing’s going over the bridge
at the moment. The bridges are all closed.’ Joan turned away. She had walked to work once before, during the bus strike. It took nearly an hour, through Kennington and over Lambeth Bridge.
Anything was better than trying to get a bus.

The same madness held sway all the way up Camberwell New Road; cars stalled, dustbins in the street, clutches of traffic followed by empty stretches where the road was too dangerous to
negotiate. Children were gathered around outside the Sacred Heart secondary school, jumping for joy at the chaos as though it was a trick they had performed on a world of unsuspecting adults. As
she approached Kennington, three fire brigade lorries came steaming and swaying down the Brixton Road, sirens joined in a vicious whine.

Half-way across Lambeth Bridge she paused and looked out over the chopping, frothing Thames. The wind charged about her head, freezing the end of her nose and whistling icily in her ears. The
whole of London paralysed, she thought, by a stiff breeze and a sense of confusion, and cut in two by this – this strip of brown sloshing water. A businessman staggered past, one hand
grabbing furiously at his raincoat and the other clutching a briefcase to his chest. Few pedestrians had braved the bridge and those that had were taking it slowly, stopping now and then to pause
and lean into the wind. Joan caught her breath, put her head down and carried on. She felt like having a good laugh. She wanted to stop on the middle of the bridge, throw her head back and roar
with laughter.