Brixton Rock (19 page)

I
t was Sunday morning‚ about 8:30 am. Floyd, who an hour ago had arrived home from a Crucial Rocker blues, paced quickly along his street, peering into the doorways. Catching sight of what he was after, he scooped up two bottles of milk and burned home.

Moments later, he was enjoying a breakfast of corn flakes when his hostel-mate appeared in the kitchen doorway, dressed only in pyjama bottoms. Brenton looked as tired as a dog who’d chased a teasing bird all day. He prised open his eyes and was astonished to see Floyd fully clothed.

“Where’ve you been this time of morning?” he asked, opening the fridge and pouring himself a glass of milk. “You don’t usually know what a Sunday morning looks like.”

“I’ve been getting supplies‚ innit.” Floyd gestured at the bottle.

“If you wanted some milk, I would’ve give you corn for it,” Brenton yawned.

“It’s kinda hard to get out of the habit. The other day I took a loaf of bread; I had some serious toast.”

Brenton shook his head and proceeded to prepare himself a bowlful of cereal. Floyd switched on the kettle. “You see the Cup Final yesterday?”

“Yeah, West Ham won, one nil innit. Brooking scored with a jammy header. Still, I’m glad West Ham won though. I hate Arsenal, they’re so friggin boring.”

Floyd wanted a smoke to go with his hot chocolate. “Got a snout?”

“Yeah, but you have to go upstairs. They’re on my dressing table.”

Floyd raced upstairs, and came back down before the kettle boiled. He then reseated himself at the kitchen table. “You know, I’m sick and tired of being poor, t’iefing milk in the mornings and rolling up butts when you’re not here. It’s pissing me off. I think I’ll start looking for a job. I reckon I could be a dread salesman.”

“Salesman? Don’t you have to do nuff training to do that? Besides, I can’t imagine you trodding street and slapping on people’s door all day. In the winter, you will fart when it gets cold.”

“Look who’s talking. Ain’t you gonna freeze when winter comes? Your seedbag are gonna be like round blocks of ice when the cold smacks your backside.”

Brenton could do nothing but laugh as Floyd poured hot water into a mug. “You going Sharon for your dinner today?” Brenton asked, wondering why Floyd never offered to make him a cup.

“Nah. Her mudder looks at me strange when I go round there on a Sunday, as if I burgled her yard. It’s like she knows I’m partly there because I’m getting something to yam. She’s polite and t’ing, but the way she looks at me, she kinda makes me feel shame that I’m there, know what I mean?” Floyd kissed his teeth. “Anyway, Sharon tells me that her mudder asks her if I got a job and t’ing when I’m not there.”

He kissed his teeth again. “I’m staying in today‚ listen some music and coch. I might check Spinner later on, or maybe Biscuit; he’s got some herb and the new Lone Ranger album.”

“Why don’t you come with me? I’m going to my mum’s yard for dinner, innit. She’s always telling me I must bring a friend or someone around.”

Floyd didn’t know what to make of the offer. “Er, why not? Yeah, be a change, innit. Can your mudder cook good? Her rice an’ peas safe to eat an t’ing? What time you leaving?”

“About two.”

Floyd arose from his chair and strutted his way along the hallway, then glanced behind him. “Yeah, all right.”

Brenton shadowed his spar until he turned up the stairs. “I’m going back to my bed‚” he yawned.

Floyd opened the front door and plonked himself on a dustbin to take the morning air.

A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman appeared, dressed in her Sunday best, walking along the pavement towards Floyd. He guessed she was on her way to church. When the white woman caught sight of him, she immediately veered over to the other side of the road and quickened her stride. As she glanced back to check whether Floyd was following her, he stood up and prepared to voice his own sermon. “Scared, are you?” he bellowed. “I bet you’re not as scared as my great-great-supergreat-grandad, who was rowing his way to Jamaica to start work as a slave. Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna drapes you.”

Didn’t my forefathers slave for this damn country, Floyd thought. Now you look ’pon us with scorn and spend all the friggin corn.

The woman didn’t dare look back as she hurried her way along the street. Floyd kissed his teeth in disgust as he strolled back indoors.

Floyd and Brenton approached Ms Massey’s home in the early afternoon. The brethren were deep in conversation as Floyd noted the affluent houses. “So how are you gonna get Flynn?” he asked.

“Finnley reckons that every Saturday night, Flynn makes his way from his supplier in Tulse Hill Estate to the front line, where he sells his herb. I check it that I will have a chance to frig him up on the way there. But not on the line, ’cos there’s too much man he knows there. So I have to find a quiet spot, then I will jook him up good.”

Floyd looked at his brethren. “I’ll be with you.”

“You?”

“And Biscuit, he hates him an’ all.”

“Biscuit? What’s he gonna do? Take pictures with that friggin camera he’s been trying to sell for ten years?”

Floyd laughed and thought that some of his wit was influencing Brenton.

The pair ambled towards the front door, and as Brenton rapped on it, he turned to his spar. “Thanks.”

Juliet opened the front door and smiled as she set eyes on her brother, then she suspiciously observed Floyd’s wide-eyed grin. “Hi, come in.”

Brenton stepped inside the house, trailed by Floyd, who immediately examined the hallway wallpaper. “You done all right, innit.”

“Yeah, nice yard innit.”

Juliet resumed preparing the salad as the boys followed her into the kitchen. “Well, what do you do?” she asked Floyd politely.

“A bit of this and that. You know, a bit of hustling. Can’t find myself a decent job yet. I was thinking about taking a job as a trainee manager.”

Brenton parked at the kitchen table. “Where’s Mum?”

Juliet swivelled round abruptly: she had never heard him call their mother ‘Mum’ before. “She’s on the phone upstairs.”

Floyd sat beside his mate, enjoying the scent of boiled chicken. “Why don’t you go inside the front room?” Juliet suggested. “Dinner will be ready soon and it’s more comfortable in there.”

Brenton and Floyd marched into the front room. “This is like the Hilton Hotel compared to my mum’s yard,” Floyd remarked, impressed. “At my mum’s yard, we had to wallpaper the walls wid the fool-fool drawings we done at school to make it look good. Our carpet was so damn thin it made tracing paper look t’ick. Hey, Brenton, why don’t you coch here?”

Brenton snuggled himself comfortably in one of the suite chairs. “It wouldn’t feel right, you know what I mean?”

A shout was heard from upstairs. “Juliet! Juliet!”

The girl trotted upstairs, and seconds later, poked her head around the front-room door. “Brenton, Mum wants you. She’s in her bedroom.”

Brenton leaped up the stairs, wondering why his mother hadn’t been downstairs to greet him when he arrived. He went straight into her bedroom, and found her lying on her double bed, with the extension telephone beside her.

“You all right, son?”

Brenton stared at a photo of his sister. Cynthia noticed this. “She look pretty der, innit?”

“Yeah, she looks all right.”

Brenton self-consciously decided not to look at any more pictures of his sister. He found this very hard, so he stared at the floor instead. “You look a bit down,” Cynthia said, studying her son’s face.

“Nah, I’m just a bit tired.”

“I was jus’ talking to your aunt in Jamaica. She well want to see you, y’know. Hopefully she can reach next year an’ you can meet.”

Brenton looked up at his mother. “Is your mum still alive?”

“Yes, she is a strong woman. She’s in her eighties now, but really she act like she jus’ fifty.”

“Does she know about me?”

“Yes. My God, she give me some cussing about you. In her letters she still does. One day I’ave to tek you to Jamaica an’ see all the family.”

“So she should cuss.”

Silence. Cynthia pushed herself off the bed. “When I was a girl-chile back ’ome, I remember my mother always cussing me about ’ow I should do good at my education. When I reached ’ome from school, she would ask me what I had learned dat day. I remember I used to be tired after the long walk from school. It mus’ ’ave been about two mile from the school to my ’ome. And more time, when I reached ’ome, all I wanted to do is jus’ find my bed for my afternoon sleep. But my mother insisted
that I should tell her what I had learned before I could sleep.”

Brenton listened attentively, more in love with his mother’s accent than the recollection she told. “So you got any other brothers and sisters?”

“I’ave two older brothers, but jus’ the one younger sister. She come over to Englan’ about t’ree year after I come. But she get ’omesick an’ she gone back ’ome an’ never return.”

“What’s she doing now?”

“She married now, an’ she ’ave t’ree children, your cousins.”

“What about your brothers?”

“Well, we don’t really keep in touch, y’know. After the t’ing wid your fader, it sort of upset dem. Dem don’t like the idea of me going wid a white man, y’understand?”

Cynthia wiped an imaginary tear from her cheek and resumed, “Even my sister did not like it, but she get used to the idea after a while, an’ she start cuss me about you, jus’ like my mother. But my brothers don’t keep in touch. I can’t change the past, y’understand?”

Brenton nodded. “If you had kept me, they might have had more respect for you.”

Ms Massey approached the bedroom door. “Juliet mus’ ’ave dinner ready by now. Come, let’s go down an’ eat some food.”

Brenton bullfrogged down the stairs and into the front room, expecting to see a hungry Floyd in there. But his spar was in the kitchen, laughing and joking with Juliet. “I’ve been saying to Juliet that maybe she should come out with us on one of our raves,” he told his hostel-mate.

Brenton chose to speak for his sister. “Juliet’s not into blues and parties. She’s into her soul and t’ing.”

“Your sister can speak for herself.”

The foursome settled down to dinner, Floyd’s wit in sparkling form as he described to his hosts the achievements of his and Brenton’s cooking.

Juliet was sitting next to Floyd, listening to him and occasionally glancing into his eyes. Floyd thought maybe he tickled
Juliet’s fancy, which launched him into a very talkative mood. He resurfaced the topic of Brenton’s cooking.

“You wanna see Brenton’s dumpling? Oh my God, you ever seen white paste? And when they’re cooked, dem tough like bouncy ball, that can bounce into third-floor balcony if a crusty bwai has a strong arm. You try to eat the dumpling and your teet’ jus’ vibrate like Shaka speaker box. And his spaghetti bolognese, kiss me granny belly button. Brenton’s spaghetti’s tough like hay to blouse an’ skirt. An’ I can’t tell you ’bout his pilchards an’ rice, cos dat’s a horror story an’ might make you run an’ go ’long to the toilet. He tries, but his head will never wear dat funny, funny weird hat what dem big-time chef wear. He’s good around the yard though, better than me. It’s sort of weird though, he keeps the rest of the yard more sheened than his own bedroom.”

Juliet rocked back in her chair with laughter, while Cynthia managed a smile. Brenton shook his head sadly, willing Floyd to jail his tongue.

As the three teenagers ate more rice and peas, Ms Massey sensed her confidence rise. “I was on the phone to my sister in Jamaica today. She was telling me dat her next-door neighbour ’ave ’im goat stolen. The man strip it an’ lef’ it ’anging from ah tree branch, an’ ’im gone inside to look some drink. When ’im come back, somebody tek the goat. Dat’s a t’ree-day dinner, man.”

Floyd and Juliet laughed heartily, but Brenton had a sort of smug smile on his face, thinking of the family rifts his birth had caused.

Cynthia poured herself some red wine. “You know, my sister tell me of a t’ing which ’appen in her area. Dis man, who is a pastor, y’know, one of dem church minister, the police arres’ ’im ’cos he was troubling ’im daughter. It mus’ ’ave been a big shame an’ scandal, for a man like dat in the parish to trouble his own daughter. I tell you, you can’t trus’ anybody.”

Floyd pinned down an elusive chicken leg and remarked, “That’s true.”

Brenton grabbed the wine bottle and filled his glass as if he was drinking Cherryade. “Serve him bloody right. I always thought them vicars and priestman were a bit dodgy. I hope he gets beat up in prison. That’s what happens to them sort of man; other prisoners jook them up.”

Brenton discerned how quiet Juliet was during the meal; perhaps she was tired. She only picked at her food. “I dunno why,” she told her mother, “but I’m never too sweet on my own cooking.”

Floyd gazed at the chicken leg on Juliet’s plate like it was a sentimental possession. “I’ll control your chicken.”

Juliet stood up and scraped the meat onto Floyd’s plate.

A couple of hours later, Brenton and Floyd prepared to leave.

Floyd thanked Ms Massey and Juliet for the dinner as Brenton opened the front door. “Bye, Mum.”

Cynthia watched her son walk off down the road, then she looked up skywards. “T’ank You, Lord.”

Brenton headed for the nearest tobacconist as Floyd dreamt of a date with Juliet. “I think your sister likes me.”

“I think my sister was being polite.”

“She was clocking me, all right.”

“Forget it.”

Back at the Massey home, Juliet trudged up the stairs and into her room, flopping down on her pink-coloured quilt. Her reflection stared sombrely at her from her mirror. She recalled the story her mother had told at the dinner-table about the perverted pastor. She closed her eyes, but could not block out the word that drummed in her brain.
Incest.

“
H
ey, Floyd! You kill off the soap?” snapped Brenton, persecuting him with a glare.

“There was only a liccle bit left.”

“Then if you used it up, why you never control another bar?”

Floyd emerged onto the landings‚ grinning as he watched Brenton scrubbing at his face with a drenched flannel. “I forgot, sorry. That soap make your boat too dry anyway. When I did sight you yesterday I felt like taking out white chalk and writing on your forehead, DRY.”

“Fuck you, man. I went to borrow your Vaseline but couldn't find the damn jar.”

“I hid it under my bed.”

“Why?”

“'Cos the last time you used it, you took out a whole 'eap. You're too grabilicious.”

Brenton surfaced from the bathroom, beads of water free falling from the nape of his neck. “Who was that in your room last night?”

“Coffin Head and Iggy.”

“Who's Iggy? Why the fuck man and man call him Iggy?”

“'Cos he's got rough skin like an iguana,” Floyd laughed. “You know, dem scaly lizard dem; like a maaga, tiny croc.”

“You lot are wicked, man. He can't help it if he's got eczema or somet'ing.”

“Yeah, but Iggy should stop exploding his missile spots inna dance when he can't find no gal to crub.” 

Brenton could do nothing but laugh, but wondered why Iggy called Floyd a brethren.

Bare-backed, Brenton crossed the small landing and entered his bedroom. Floyd shadowed him.

“Don't you lot have any consideration for someone who's trying to sleep?” Brenton rebuked. “All I heard last night was your spars slamming down domino and cussing each other.”

“You're not working today, innit. You got today off. Why didn't you rope-in? Coffin Head had a draw on him; nice herb.”

“I was tired.”

Floyd plonked himself on the single bed, stealing a glance at Mr Dean; this picture always troubled him. “I buck up on Sceptic the other day. He was telling me he sight Flynn on the line selling herb. It's like a regular runnings for him.”

“Yeah? Everyone in Brixton seen Flynn selling his herbs on the line. I'm surprised the beast haven't picked him up.”

“So me and Sceptic were t'inking we could come up with some kind of plan. To get your revenge and t'ing.”

“Plan? You and Sceptic are thinking of a plan? Sceptic's even 'fraid of schoolgirls to rarted; he's a shaper.”

“Nah, he's safe. He's gonna go undercover and check on Flynn's movements.”

“You told Sceptic to go undercover? Tell Sceptic to rest himself.”

“He wants to help, innit.”

Brenton remembered the time Sceptic trod on a bad bwai's crocodile boot inna blues dance. Sceptic apologised and sheeped back home inna hurry.

“I don't want too many man knowing I'm out for revenge,” affirmed Brenton. “If we're not careful, news will get out.”

“Sceptic won't say nutten.”

Brenton donned a white T-shirt while Floyd pastried a spliff of snout butts.

“I sight your sister yesterday in Tescos,” informed Brenton.

“Oh yeah; she still dealing wid that idiot church bwai?”

“I dunno. When I see people I don't ask dem 'bout their love- life.”

“He's a friggin bounty. I dunno what Jean sees in him. The man's seriously ugly. If I had a face like dat, I'd teach my batty to chat.”

“Anyway, she told me that your mum wants to see you.”

“What for?”

“I dunno. Probably wants to make sure you're breathing.”

Floyd adopted a thoughtful pose, left hand on knee and other hand supporting his jaw. “She didn't fret 'bout me when my paps booted me out.”

Brenton studied the way his spar expertly constructed the spliff, wondering why his own joints were never as criss as that.

“Well, I was just told to give you the message.”

Floyd torched his tobacco-filled roll-up. “Don't need her.”

Later on in the afternoon, Brenton departed the hostel to go for a trod in the park. For some reason, an image of the Job Centre bulldozed into his mind. He recalled earlier on in the year, when he didn't have a turkey hope of even controlling an interview, let alone a job. And those civil servants who worked in the Job Centre always had an ‘I'm better than you' vibe, similar to them
teacher-arse
-kissing prefects at school.

Floyd remained inside the hostel, stewing on his sister's message. He was accompanied by his faithful suitcase, which mirrored his struggles by blaring out Dennis Brown's
Tribulation.

Maybe his mother did care for him, he thought. Or perhaps she had reached out her hand because of Jean's prompting. Floyd missed Jean's presence in his life. She was forever defending him when accused of badness by their father. Then it dawned on Floyd that no matter what, he would at least be offered something to eat. Since the day he was born, he never had no reason to cuss his mother's cooking.

An hour later, Floyd was stepping across Brockwell Park
towards his mother's flat in Tulse Hill. The park held many memories for him, especially of Uncle Herbie.

Always wearing sticksman clothes, topped off by a black fedora, Herbie seemed to know everybody. He used to have a growlish greeting of: ‘Wha'appen, skipper? T'ings irie?' whenever he approached a familiar face.

Herbie would organise junior soccer games in the park‚ and he always ensured that Floyd was one of the captains. While the game was in progress, he would retire to a park bench and hoover one of his cigar-length roll-ups. Floyd often wondered why his uncle didn't own a tobacco tin like the one his father had.

Following a couple of hours of feverish football, the chiming sounds of an ice-cream van would drown the junior squeals. Herbie would delve into his pocket and his hand would emerge with more shekels than an amusement-arcade kiosk. Floyd and his mates then enjoyed ice-cream cones with a leg of chocolate jutting out of them.

When Floyd was eleven, Herbie mysteriously disappeared from his life. He asked his mother many times what had become of his uncle, but the reply was a repetitive: ‘Im gone ah foreign'.

Up to the present day, Floyd looked on Herbie as his real father. His natural father could never find the quality time to spend with his son, while his mother thought it was more important to have her husband's dinner ready by the time he came home from work, rather than see to Floyd's upbringing. Jean, Floyd's sister, gradually took over the parental role in his life. She was the one always attending parents' meetings at school, and she was the one who helped him with his homework.

Floyd reached the housing estate opposite Dick Shepherd School. He looked across the road and grinned as he witnessed a game of netball taking place, wondering if the apprentice sweet bwais still chased the ripening girls in the park during the
dinner-break.

Ambling through the estate, he asked himself why his parents had swapped their rum and sugarcane existence in the Caribbean for this grey town in deepest Babylon.

He climbed the stairs of his mother's block, greeting the three youths who were hot-wiring a rusty car below with a respectful nod.

Using his key, he tapped on the window of his mother's kitchen, which overlooked the forecourt of the estate.

“Ah who dat?” demanded a suspicious voice, in the tone a medieval castle-keeper would have used.

“Open the door, man.”

The door opened.

“Lord God; me son come to check me, praise the Lord.”

Floyd glared accusingly at his mother. He never felt at ease with her Pentecostal church rhetoric.

Mrs Francis was a big woman. Her arms seemed to have stirred the broth for the feeding of the five thousand, her lips appeared to have kissed every Brixtonian pickney, and her bosom could have supplied their milk. She had such a kindly expression, that no one outside her family dared to question her compassion and maternal instincts. Her beach-ball cheeks had long ago learned the art of a permanent smile.

“I always knew you would come back to me,” Floyd's mother smiled. “De Lord God 'as never fail' me.”

As Floyd entered the hallway, he recognised the imposing crucifix screwed to the wall, and wondered what his mother's reaction would be if he'd grown dreadlocks.

He made his way to the cramped lounge, which was decorated in light colours and framed black and white photographs staring eerily from the four walls. On the mantelpiece above the gas fire stood a framed certificate, awarded to Jean Francis for completing an advanced hairdressing course.

“When did Jean get that?” asked Floyd, pointing at the certificate while collapsing on the settee.

“In March‚” Mrs Francis answered proudly. “She wan' her own salon one day.”

“That's good. Now I hope she will stop giving her wort'less friends free trims.”

Mrs Francis parked her bulk in a matching armchair opposite her son.

“So tell me, Floyd. You find work yet?”

“Didn't know you was interested.”

“Of course me interested.”

“Then how comes since I move to Camberwell, you haven't checked me?”

“'Cos you made it clear dat you never wan' me 'round.”

“Doesn't mean I meant it,” he said sulkily.

His mother reared up. “You don't t'ink me worry 'bout you when me inna me bed ah night-time?”

“I dunno; do you?”

“Cha! Sometimes you jus' 'ave to be awkward.” Mrs Francis glowered.

“Anyway, I haven't got a job, and I probably won't get one until the white bosses decide to give a young black a chance.”

“Why you wan' talk you'self down? You 'ave a sharp brain and you was clever wid your drawings dem.”

Floyd leaned towards his mother, frustration brewing in his mind. “You know what it feels like to go after jobs and dem boss man say they'll let you know; but you know they ain't gonna take you on 'cos you're black? And to keep going to that blasted Job Centre where the saps working there recognise you and hail you by your first name; and come wid plastic smiles and say to you somet'ing will turn up if you keep looking?”

Mrs Francis dropped her eyes to the floor. Floyd continued his rant. “Do you know that for every job advertised, about fifty sad Giro people like me go for it?”

Floyd's mother was visibly shaken by what her son was saying, and knew in her heart that he was being truthful. The harsh
economic climate stretched out its digits to grip everyone she knew. On the news programmes, the jobless totals stacked like early morning supermarkets. Her close friend Edna's dream of retiring to Jamaica had recently been nucleared by her husband's redundancy in the car industry. On her shopping trips to Brixton, she saw the youths of the area bee hiving around the record shops in even greater numbers. She remembered her mother's saying:
Lucifer
tek
idle
'
and
‚
an
'
mek
it
stir
blood.

“But your fader has managed to keep a job for twenty-five years now,” Mrs Francis finally replied.

“Only because he's doing a job the white man didn't want to do when he first come over.”

“Floyd! Dat is disrespectful to your fader.”

“It's true; when the white man invite the black man to this damn land after the war, it was because they had no one to do the shit jobs.”

Mrs Francis glared at her son, shocked by his vehemence. Why the yout' dem so angry? she thought.

“At least your fader provide fe 'im family. You t'ink it would ah easy inna Jamaica? Back 'ome dem 'ave no social security. If you nuh work out der, you 'ave no money at all. You affe depend on your family dem to mind you.”

Floyd put his feet up on the sofa, heedful to kick off his trainers before he did so. He knew his mother was right; and indeed, he was well glad he wasn't living on his Brixtonian wits in Kingston. He nodded thoughtfully. “Can you say you're really happy?” he asked her curiously. “When you left Jamaica, did you have some dream?”

“Well, people used to say de streets ah London were paved in gold,” Mrs Francis told him. “But the main t'ing was me and your fader did wan' to give our pickney dem a better chance.”

“Some chance.”

“You been listening to too much rasta talk,” his mother scolded. “When I was a girl, me mudder used to tell me not to go
near the blackheart man, the rasta man, who did live inna de gully and mad bush. Dem mad people jus' give up on life, and dem is confusing the yout' dem wid der revolution talk.”

“You been listening to too much white man!” Floyd riposted. “When we were slaves, a few used to rebel and run away. So to tame these rebels, they give dem the Bible to read. So they were brainwashed to think that their suffering was all right, and when dem dead they will forward to heaven.”

Mrs Francis could hardly believe the talk firing out of her son's mouth. This was not the boy she had taken to church in his formative years.

“As the Gong says,” Floyd continued, “you have to look for your heaven on earth; not for the heaven the blasted preacher man chats about.”

Floyd's mother hauled herself up from her seat, not wanting to hear any more blasphemous rhetoric. She felt Floyd's words branded her to be a failure, in regards to rearing her son. She thought of his earlier question, and no, she was not content. Memories of signs on lodging houses saying:
No
dogs
‚
no
blacks
,
no
Irish
humiliated her still.

She made her way to the kitchen, followed by her son's gaze. “You wan' me to mek up a liccle snack fe you, or you staying fe dinner?”

“No, some cheese and bun or somet'ing will be all right, thanks.”