As Charlotte and Michael stepped outside a light rain began to fall. They headed across the Spring Gardens, walking quickly. Neither carried an umbrella.
‘You don’t expect it to rain in August,’ complained Michael.
‘This is Britain,’ said Charlotte. ‘You should be used to it — you were born here.’
‘Oh yeah.’ The Spring Gardens were dark with only a few streetlamps lighting the way. A train rattled by on the arches above Vauxhall Station as they hurried past several groups of sleeping men. The Royal Vauxhall Tavern was still busy, its coloured lights shining out on to the ardens. Charlotte and Michael skirted an overloaded skip, half of its contents spilling on to the ground.
The night was quiet and neither said a word until they drew near Charlotte’s street. Then Michael said, ‘This is where I got stopped by the police last month.’
‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘I didn’t want to worry you. Happens too often to mention every time anyway. It’s so demoralising.’
‘Why did they stop you here?’
‘I was in my car. The usual — drugs. It’s as though they can’t stand seeing black guys driving cars — they reckon I must have got the money for it from dealing hash or some¬thing.’
‘Fucking wankers,’ said Charlotte.
‘Well, they left me alone after a while. Weren’t too obnoxious this time.’
‘Bastards.’
Michael glanced at Charlotte. She looked tight-lipped and angry. ‘Don’t worry about it, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten about it half an hour later.’
‘It just makes me so cross. Why should you have to put up with that? It happens to my brothers all the time as well.’
Oh god. More bad dialogue and characters who are too emblematic for their own good. I’m sorry peeps. There is no way that Michael would have to explain this to Charlotte. They wouldn’t even have this conversation – the weather, maybe, I still spend lots of time complaining about English weather after all these years. But if I was re-writing, I’d cut everything from below the line ‘This is where I got stopped by the police last month.’
To tell the truth, what reading this makes me ask right now is – where was my editor? I can’t blame her, but still, why didn’t she say ‘YOU HAVE TO REWRITE THIS NOW!’?
Charlotte and Michael had known each other since they were both children when Michael had been a friend of Char¬lotte’s brothers. In their late teens Michael and the brothers had drifted apart but the boys remained in touch through the ordinary channels of housing estate gossip. Michael heard about Charlotte’s move away into her own flat and then, later, when she was forced to move out, but he did not know where she had gone. It was not until he started working at the nursery that he saw her again. They both worked part-time there, Michael with the older kids and the after-school playgroups, Charlotte with the little ones. When they met, she had just broken up with her last girl¬friend, as had Michael, and they needed each other’s company. Consolation became admiration, and admiration had turned into a friendship made sharper and more interesting with sex. The first night they spent together, several weeks before Charlotte was evicted, Michael asked her, ‘So, are you gay or straight or what?’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘Well,’ Michael huffed, ‘it makes a difference to the out¬come of this evening.’
‘Oh,’ said Charlotte, nodding sagely, ‘in that case I’m a bit of both.’
‘Jesus. Does that mean I’m going to have to spend all my time competing with both men and women for your attentions?’
‘Probably,’ said Charlotte.
This is slightly better. At least they veer away from total stereotypes here. I’ve always tried to write about race in all my fiction. The meaning of race interests me – whiteness, blackness, mixed-ness – and what it all signifies in our culture. I’m hoping I’ve got slightly better at this over the years.
As they turned into Tradescant Road, Charlotte noticed that all the lights were on in the house next to hers. When they walked by she could see someone peering out from the first floor. Elbowing Michael, she flicked her chin in that direction and he looked up. Her house appeared just as it had that morning, boarded shut and abandoned. With the invisible neighbour still watching they continued along the footpath. Charlotte prised the plywood board away, unlocked the door, and slipped inside with Michael fol¬lowing her. They went straight upstairs to the back of the house before turning on any lights.
‘I don’t want my reoccupation of this place to be too conspicuous,’ she explained, ‘but those bastards next door have probably already rung the authorities. The toilet is downstairs if you need it. I managed to put a new one in today. There’s a bucket of water beside it.’ The room they were in was lit by two small lamps that sat in opposite corners on the floor. Charlotte’s bed, a thin mat with a duvet on it, was rolled up against the wall. The only other furniture was a low table which she had retrieved from a friend around the corner. A rug lay in front of that but the window was curtainless.
‘Still as spartan as always,’ said Michael, sitting down against the wall under a picture of Ornette Coleman. He stretched his long thin legs out on the floor in front of him. Charlotte stood in the middle of the room. ‘This bedroom feels like a little oasis on the edge of complete dereliction,’ he continued. ‘I’m always afraid to go out of it at night. I feel as though the stairs might collapse when I walk down them.’
‘The house is perfectly sturdy,’ said Charlotte. ‘They only destroyed the plumbing and a few windows.’
‘I know but it’s so ugly down there I feel like the whole place has been smashed up.’
‘Another couple of weeks and I’ll have it all back to how it was before they came.’ Charlotte sat down next to Michael who put his arm round her. ‘What do you think about those two and their plan?’
‘What is she, an artist or something?’
‘She’s a sculptor.’
‘I don’t know. People do the strangest things. They seem very confident. Why do you think they have taken the jobs?’
‘Who knows? I think they’re pretentious.’
‘You’re just too much of an old cynic to believe they mean anything, aren’t you?’ said Michael. He leant over and attempted to kiss Charlotte but she dodged him.
‘Well, you’d hope they could think of something a little more constructive to do. I love fun-fairs, but the power station…’
‘Hmm. I know what you mean.’
‘It makes me despair,’ she added. Then, with determi¬nation, Charlotte stopped speaking and moved closer to Michael. His body experienced a slight jolt as she placed her hand on his leg. This friction warmed them both.
Living in rooms like this, houses like this, was magical. Truly. A clean-swept room with old rough walls and very few possessions. So far removed from the way I live today with my mortgage and car and two kids and trampoline. So far removed from the way my character in ‘Dark Mass Falling’, Harriet, lives. But the fact is that squatting in semi-derelict properties was romantic. This section captures a little bit of that. See, section 12 – a chunk of truly terrible writing, followed by a chunk of something much more evocative. I guess this is what people mean when they use the word ‘uneven’!
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