East of Acre Lane. Alex Wheatle
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if I was a girl!’
Biscuit laughed as Royston tugged his arm. Wilson offered his brethren a cigarette as his face turned serious.
‘Katrina knows one of de people who dead in de fire last week.’
‘Dat t’ing at Deptford?’
‘Yeah, friend of friend business. Everyone was chatting ’bout it at de dance last night. Maybe dey were t’inking dat some National Front bwai would fling petrol bomb inna de dance. It’s like all an’ all so vex y’know. Me sight a white yout’ get bus’ up down Acre Lane de uder day. De poor sap only went to buy a pattie, but when he came out, some man who were in de bookie jump on ’im an’ mash up his claat. People are vex me ah tell you.’
‘So how many are dead now?’ Biscuit asked solemnly.
‘Ten. T’irty are injured or inna hospital. De beast ain’t made no arres’ yet an dat’s why people are so vex. Der’s talk of some kinda march if de beast don’t do nutten. An’ de nex’ National Front march der’s going to be nuff trouble.’
‘So nobody sight who did it?’
‘Nah. It was dark an’ t’ing an’ one minute everybody’s wining an’ dining, de nex’ minute de yard ketch a fire. Some jus’ escape. A serious business.’
‘So if it was de beef’eads, you t’ink dey will try de same t’ing?’
‘Nobody knows. I can’t see dem trying it in Brixton. If dey do it will be pure almshouse business. Some beef’ead mus’ ah dead, believe.’
‘Yeah, it’s dat. But somet’ing gonna snap, man. So many yout’ get bus’ up inna cell dese days. Y’hear wha’ ’appen to Sceptic? Beastman arres’ ’im outside Kentucky inna Brixton, tek ’im to cell an’ bruk up ’im nose an’ boot up his rib-cage. An’ now, fockin’ beef’ead might ’ave fling petrol bomb inna one of our dance. Man an’ man waan life fe life. Dat’s wha’ dem Brixton panther man say, innit.’
‘Seen. Somet’ings gonna blow up … Listen, man. You dealing?’
‘Yeah, man. Jus’ get me batch last night.’
‘I wanna check you for an eighth later on, yeah.’
‘Seen. You know where to check me, innit.’
‘Yeah, man. But don’t gi’ me a draw wid too much seed in it. Laters.’
Biscuit and Royston watched Wilson cross the road before they entered the sweet shop. Royston had listened attentively to the conversation, as he did when his brother’s friends turned up at home. He was scared for his brother but didn’t know what to say. He had heard how Biscuit’s friends were beat up by the beast, locked up in jail, or stabbed by some bad man. He knew the tale of Brenton Brown and Terry Flynn, which went down in the annals of Brixtonian folklore as one of the most violent confrontations anyone had ever heard of. Whenever Brenton visited the Huggins’ home, Royston’s eyes could not be deflected from the scar upon the man’s neck as he listened attentively to every word the ‘Stepping Volcano’ uttered. A real life Brixtonian bad man in my house, he told himself. He repeated the description of Brenton to his classmates, and would go into detail on how his hero walked.
As the brothers ambled towards home, Royston munched his Kit-Kat and asked, ‘Do white people always throw fire in black homes?’
‘No. But dey might do it more often if we let dem.’
‘The beast won’t catch the white people who done it, will they?’
Coffin Head palmed his car horn and waited for Biscuit. Dressed in thick, green corduroy trousers and a cream-coloured puffy anorak, he had time to smoke a cigarette before Biscuit came down. He looked out of the passenger window and thought to himself that Cowley was the ugliest council estate in the area. Why did they use the colour of old shit for bricks, he wondered. An elderly black woman passed his view, wearing a Sunday-best white dress underneath her unbuttoned blue trench coat. His eyes tailed her as Biscuit, dressed in blue seamed jeans and a thick black sweater, filled the passenger seat.
‘You’re an hour late,’ Biscuit rebuked.
‘Char, I ’ad t’ings to do, innit. Drop my mum to church.’
‘Church! I can’t see why so many of our mudders forward to dem boring service,’ Biscuit remarked.
‘Your mudder don’t.’
‘Cos she’s always busy ’pon Sundays wid bagwash, cooking an’ dem t’ing der.’
Coffin Head restarted the car and drove south along Brixton Road, turning left into Mostyn Road.
‘I’ve been to Smiley’s flat before one time wid Floyd,’ Biscuit said. ‘But you know what Myatts Field is like – one big friggin’ maze. I’ll never find it again.’
‘Yeah, but I know where Dyer’s flat is,’ replied Coffin Head. ‘We’ll head der first. He lives wid his mudder.’
Biscuit scanned the interior of the car. ‘When you gonna fix up dis car, man? Look how my seat is eaten out! No girl will sit ’pon dis. Dat yellow fluffy stuff is all coming out. An’ when you gonna get a new handle for de window? An’ bwai, you better get some more carpet to cover up de rust an’ t’ing ’pon de floor.’
‘I’ll fix it up nex’ week wid de corn I’ll make off de herb. An’ stop your complaining; dis car has saved you nuff trods on a cold night. We coulda walked to Myatts Field anyway, it’s only a five-minute trek.’
‘I don’t like walking across dat green wid all de amount of untold dog shit … An’ who de rarse is Dyer?’
‘Luther Dyer, jus’ come out of Borstal. He went to Kennington Boys an’ used to walk wid de Sledgehammer posse.’
‘Wha’ did he go Borstal for?’
‘Drapes a handbag an’ t’ing off a girl at Cats Whiskers. Beastman were waiting for him outside de club and he tried to chip but dey caught him jus’ outside Brixton Bus Garage. He shoulda known dat de beast always patrol outside de club. I t’ought it was a bit extra for de beast to ’ave van, nuff dog and truncheons blazing.’
‘How much bird did he get?’
‘’Bout a year. Beast went to his yard an’ found whole ’eap of uder t’ings. His mudder went cuckoo, cos she didn’t know nutten.’
Coffin Head turned into the Myatts Field Estate, driving down a narrow road with alleyways and paths leading off in all directions. Tiny sections of grass, dissected by cheap wooden partitions, fronted two- and three-storey blocks that seemed to have been built by an agoraphobic architect.
Coffin Head found a parking space and eyed a trio of black teenagers smoking cigarettes and shooting the breeze. ‘I ain’t leaving my car here for long,’ he commented.
They climbed out of the car and surveyed the low-level concrete jungle around them. Coffin Head led the way up two flights of stairs to a path that offered no view outside the estate and was hardly touched by the sun. It was hard to tell where one home started and another finished. They kept a close watch over their shoulders, only too aware that even bad men got mugged around here. After many turns, they finally arrived at Dyer’s fortressed door. Coffin Head knocked impatiently.
‘Who dat?’
‘Coffin Head an’ Biscuit.’
‘I ain’t got no corn to buy telly, hi-fi or anyt’ing like dat.’
‘But we’re selling some nice collie, what you saying?’
The callers heard two mortice locks click back. The door