Chapter 17
You knew when trouble was coming because the weather was too hot.
It had happened before: days of sultry, oppressive heat, people shut up in tenement flats.
The smog, stench, flies and dirt were scarcely bearable some of the year but, when the sun shone for too long, they sent everyone slightly mad.
‘There are no riots in November,’ Uncle Henry remarked, as he and Tom walked up to the market one August day to find Aunt Jenny some cherries. She was not well.
The stall-holders had packed up and gone for the most part and so Henry and Tom continued up past the Electric Cinema and towards the Golborne Road end of the Portobello Road.
‘There’s a chap up here who stays open later,’ said Henry, mopping his brow. ‘Gets deliveries from Cornwall, but they’re not here till tea time.’
At the coffee bar on the corner of Portobello Road and Golborne Road, four Teddy Boys were huddled together in a knot; leaning against the windows and smoking, they were talking so intently that their quiffs bobbed in the still breeze; they turned when they heard footsteps, then resumed their closed conversation.
‘Damned hot,’ muttered Uncle Henry, glancing at them uneasily. ‘Ah, here we are, young Tom. Harold’s is still open. Didn’t I tell you it would be? Hurrah. Jenny shall have her cherries.’
Harold’s was Perlman’s Grocers, but the owner, shaking his head at Henry, said regretfully that he was closing up early.
He slammed the shutters and dropped the iron bar across them, then went inside.
‘I’d clear out of here if I was you, Mr Caldicott,’ he said.
‘There’ll be trouble later on.’ And he nodded at the group of lounging boys.
‘Pish,’ said Uncle Henry, following him inside. ‘Young indolent fools, Perlman.’
‘They’ve got bars. Sawn them off railings of houses, they have. And I seen them making Molotov cocktails.’
But Henry ignored this. ‘I merely require some cherries for my poor sister, Perlman.’
‘The old trouble?’ said Mr Perlman sympathetically, bagging up large handfuls of smooth, shining cherries. ‘The nerves again, is it?’
‘Something like it, I expect. Women,’ Henry muttered, handing Mr Perlman some change.
‘Tom, let’s go. Poor Jenny was right,’ he said, tucking the bag under his arm as they left.
‘It’s a wasteland up here these days. Dreadful.
’ He said this loudly enough for Mr Perlman to hear.
Mr Perlman shrugged, went in and shut the door.
‘Bloody nosy fool,’ said Henry furiously. ‘Who’s he to be prying into Jenny’s life, our life? Good God, it makes me angry –’
‘Let’s take these back to her,’ said Tom, because he was worried about the look in his uncle’s eyes. ‘Aunt Jenny will be so pleased. She seemed better today, I thought, didn’t you? Stronger. Sitting up, anyway –’
‘Oh, her trouble’s all in the mind,’ said his uncle almost without thinking. ‘She’s – it all gets to her now and then, as you know.’ He mopped his brow again with a handkerchief. ‘Cheek of the fellow.’
They were walking back along the Portobello Road. ‘What gets to her?’ said Tom curiously.
His uncle began to say something, then stopped. ‘All sorts. You, mainly, young Tom. Ha! Just a joke. Onwards.’
The road leading away from Perlman’s was lined with town houses blackened with grime and decay, flakes of paint almost peeling off before one’s eyes.
Every other window was boarded up with rusting, corrugated iron, railings bent or sawn off.
Children played in the street, while mothers sat on the steps, talking to each other.
The children were dressed neatly, but their clothes were filthy, too small or too big. A few didn’t have shoes.
‘Hey!’ a voice behind them said, friendly, unguarded.
Tom looked up to see Gordon on the pavement on the other side of the road, smiling at them.
He was wearing a smart grey suit with sharp creases at the front, a matching trilby, and a thin orange, red and green striped tie. ‘What are you two doing up this way?’
‘Hi, Gordon,’ said Tom.
Henry tugged at Tom’s arm, like a child. ‘I say, Tom, let’s be off.’
‘You remember Gordon,’ said Tom.
‘Oh, of course,’ said Henry smoothly. ‘Hello, old boy, how are we?’
Gordon smiled, and stood to attention. ‘Major Caldicott.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Henry, entirely uneasy.
‘How’s Jenny?’ said Gordon.
‘Oh – well,’ said Henry, giving Gordon a quick, charming smile. ‘You know. Thank you so much. She’ll be awfully touched you were asking after her, old thing –’ He made to move off and seemed surprised when Gordon stood in his way.
‘You act like you don’t remember me, Henry,’ he said politely. ‘Like we weren’t all in it together during the war, and what happened after. But I remember, you know. I remember it all.’
‘I remember too, old thing. Awfully grateful to you. Awfully.’ Henry’s face was sweaty, and red patches, like raspberries, bloomed angrily on his pale, flank-like cheeks.
‘That’s good, then. Glad to hear it,’ said Gordon, and he stood back, as if collecting himself, and touched his hat to his head. ‘Off you go now –’
‘Wee Tommy Raven!’ Turning, Tom saw Robert Hillman and Tony Powell in the middle of a gang that were throwing home-made fire-crackers on the ground. They didn’t usually go up this way; this was not their patch. It was Robert, Johnny’s brother, who had called his name. Tom stared at him.
‘I don’t like you, Mr Raven,’ Robert said, smiling.
His eyes were slightly glazed over and Tom thought he’d been taking purple hearts.
The Teddy Boys loved purple hearts; Johnny had told him about them and Tom had seen them throwing the tablets down their throats outside the Tube like they were shots of whisky in a Western.
‘You’re always in the way, you little bastard. ’
‘Hey, Robert,’ Tony said. ‘Leave him.’
‘Piss off, Tone. I said, I don’t like him.
Prick.’ Robert started to walk towards Tom, but was distracted by a little girl, a toddler with curling red hair in front of him who had lost her mother.
She had tripped and was crying, blocking his path.
Robert stopped, lifting her up by one arm and dumping her out of his way on the pavement like she was a sack of rubbish.
She cried even louder. A woman nearby picked her up and put her on her hip, giving Robert Hillman a dirty look.
‘Let’s go,’ said Tom, and he put his hand on Gordon’s sleeve. ‘Gordon – come on.’
‘I’ll stay,’ said Gordon, shaking his head, his eyes huge with a rage Tom had never seen in him before. ‘You run now, Tom, okay?’
‘But it’s not safe. Come on, Gordon. This isn’t anything to do with you and me. Come on.’
Gordon was looking around on the ground.
He picked up a small stone. ‘They’ll find a way to make it our fault.
Wait and see. The most depressing fact about growing up, you want to know it?
’ He was nodding. ‘It’s easier when you preserve the status quo, my friend.
It’s less terrifying.’ He pushed Tom, hard. ‘Go!’
‘Hey, you! Little shit!’ Tom turned, and Robert’s face was twisted, ablaze with hatred, almost insane. ‘What you doing with that n—’
Tom turned away, pulling Gordon with him, but as they turned it happened.
Something landed on the road in front of them, shattering into pieces, and there was a blinding light.
The little girl was still screaming, someone else was screaming, and there was the sound of yelling, and of bicycle chains rattling, and sticks and iron bars clattering against railings – when you heard one up and down the crescent, it was loud, but this was ten, twenty, like drums. Gordon shouted something, but Tom couldn’t hear him, the sound of the explosion echoing in his ears.
He saw some boys further up the road. One of them was holding a green bottle, something on fire inside it.
‘Molotov cocktails!’ Gordon was shouting, and Tom heard him this time. ‘Get up, Tom, and run! Get out of here!’
Tom was dizzy, so dizzy it took him a while to realize he was on the ground and could not get up. He could not see.
‘Get him!’
‘Get them!’
He blinked, but still he couldn’t see anything.
Something was flowing – water, blood, what was it?
And Gordon’s voice was in his ear, shouting at him to keep moving, and there were men’s voices everywhere, cursing, and the banging of metal on metal, and then he could smell more than the usual tar and smog and sewage smell that you got in some slums – something was burning.
He kept blinking, then he rubbed his eyes, and it was like fire burning into them.
I can’t see, he said in a quiet voice. Uncle Henry, I can’t see?
Uncle Henry? But there was no answer. He scrambled to his feet again, just as someone, a tall boy with a bobbing quiff like a cockerel’s coxcomb and a face distorted with hate, opened his mouth and screamed something before throwing a bottle towards them.
The force of it blew him back: a wall of heat. Something, or someone else, landed on him. There was screaming, and thuds. Everything was on the ground, and then everything was black.