Heaven's Promise (21 page)

I jumped the guy from behind and pulled him down, allowing the beaten guy to crawl to safety while I held him down. My opponent could not have been more than 16 years old but his face was creased up with such wild fury, that he become a human Rottweiler, a crazy fearless dog of war, and for a couple of seconds, I was totally transfixed by his terrible appearance. It was then that The Sheriff intervened, pulling me away, and delivering a kick to the bollocks that had the young caveman squirming in agony.

‘Come on,' he said, ‘we're all over here.'

I made to follow him but realised in a flash that I had dropped my weapon and, checking the ground around me, I had no chance to see the brick that came flying out of nowhere and which smashed into the back of my neck, sending vicious shots of pain up my head and knocking me into a pool of darkness.

When I came to, I don't know when, I was being carried by two boys in blue who gently laid me down inside the entrance to the flats. Outside, all I could hear was sirens merging with the loud and ugly noise of street violence and I felt sick. The adrenalin inside had turned to poison and what scared me further was that I could not raise my head.

‘Right, what's wrong with you son?' I heard someone ask and, before I knew it, two St. John's Ambulance numbers were beside me, placing a thick pad of cotton wool under my neck and then lifting me onto a stretcher. They carried me into the lift and then along a balcony before turning into a flat that was now acting as a makeshift hospital.

‘Put him down there,' I heard a voice say. I looked up to see a thin faced Indian women approaching me.

‘It's just slight concussion,' one of the ambulance numbers said, ‘and we've stopped the bleeding. Just keep him still and he should be alright.' There in the room, a young man sat on the sofa holding a wad of tissues to his nose, his head bowed in pain. On the chair opposite sat little Sieta, looking at us both, one to the other, with a frightened wonderment. Her mother came into the room with a new swab of cotton wool that had been dripped in something.

She came to me, lifted my head up slowly, moved away my original bandage, and placed the swab on my wound, causing a fiery sensation to spring up in my neck which quickly and mercifully disappeared.

‘How man y fingers can you see?' she unexpectedly asked, placing three, elegant long fingers in front of me, and it brought a smile to my face because it's the kind of thing you see in those dumb cop shows on TV, and you never think for one minute that one day you'll be going through the routine.

‘Three,' I replied. ‘Where are you?'

‘In your flat.' Mrs. Punwabi smiled. ‘I think you'll be okay.'

‘I still feel a little sick.'

‘I'll get you a pillow and you can rest up.' Once I was slightly propped up I could take in more of the small living room where photographs of Sieta adorned the walls and surfaces, documenting the child from birth to now, providing a personal history of time and beauty. Outside, the noise had thankfully started to die down and reasoning that at any second there might be more urgent casualties than myself, I pulled myself up feeling a lot of better than I figured I would. The guy on the sofa still had his head bowed down low.

‘You alright, mate?' I asked him.

He didn't look up but said, in a low voice, ‘I wish I had never got involved.'

It was then that he looked up at me and my heart went into a minor shock. 14 years old, if that, with his hair cropped close, he was, unbelievably, one of the enemy and here was Mrs Punwabi attending to his wounds.

‘I wish I had never got involved,' he repeated and then he bowed his head again and gave out a little sob. I moved into the kitchen where Mrs. Punwabi, and two other women, who I didn't recognise, were standing.

‘You shouldn't be up,' Mrs. Punwabi remonstrated. ‘I'm okay. Really I am. That guy you've got in there...'

‘We know,' said one of the women, ‘but he's just a baby. There's no problem.'

‘Thanks for all you've done,' I said to Mrs Punwabi. Indeed, I wanted to tell her that this country and town was so much better off with the likes of her around but such speeches are best left unspoken, so I gave her a small hug, bade her friends goodbye and wandered out onto the balcony to survey the scene below. It was obvious that the boys in blue had now seized control of the situation. Large pockets of them roamed up and down the mainway, a blue caterpillar scouring the ground for suspects.

I ventured upstairs to Amanda's flat hoping to catch up with my links, praying that they had not been damaged, but as there was no answer there, I caught the lift down to the ground floor and made my exit out of the back door, not wanting to meet up with any boys in blue.

As I made my way to the train station, furiously debating as to the location of my friends, I decided a cab would be the best way of transport, and, as I had previously noticed a mini cab office nearby, I set sail for there, reaching within two minutes. I walked into the small, shabby office and there, sitting anxiously on a small wooden bench was a gal who I vaguely recognised. I looked at her for just a little too long and so had to say something as she was now looking at me with great inquisitiveness.

‘I know you don't I?' I asked her. ‘Were you just on the march?'

‘Yes, I was. Now I'm trying to get to the hospital but they say they haven't got any cars.'

As if on cue, a driver unexpectedly walked in and bade her come with him. ‘Look,' I said, having not thought at all about this option, ‘can I come with you? I've lost my friends and they may be up there.'

‘Sure.' She motioned to the swab I was still holding to my head. ‘You look like you need treatment yourself.'

‘It's nothing. Looks worse than what it is.'

‘Let's go then.'

On the way there, I asked after her boyfriend. ‘Do you know if he's badly injured?'

She shook her head.

‘I wasn't meant to come here today, he asked me not to as he said there would be trouble. But I had to. I woke up this morning with a horrible feeling that something would go wrong, and now it has. I hope to God he's okay. I saw him being taken into an ambulance just as I got to the estate and so I dashed up here.'

‘I'm sure he'll be fine. A lot of the time injuries look a lot worse than they actually are,' I lied. ‘What do you do, by the way?'

‘I'm a journalist,' and when she said it, everything just clicked into place. No doubt about it, this was the gal that had turned up to interview Daddy Cecil in the Portobello cafe all those months ago. Just to make sure I asked,

‘What kind of things you scribble on?'

‘Lifestyle stuff basically but my main thing is a book on the history of West Indian politics in Britain. My boyfriend is helping me out with it.'

I kept my silence but inside I couldn't help but smile. It would be the perfect ammo next time the Daddy man started in on me.

‘What about yourself?' she said but so anxiously was she scanning the road ahead, impatient to reach her loved one, that I knew she was just making small talk.

‘Oh,' I replied, ‘I wish to become a missionary and realise Heaven's promise. That's all.'

‘Sounds nice,' she said, still staring ahead.

A minute later we were in front of the hospital desk, where a nurse informed us that a Cecil Smith had been admitted but it was nothing too serious, and as for the names I had handed over, only one was present and correct. I found The Sheriff and Jasmine sitting in the casualty waiting room. He wore a bandage around his head and Jasmine clasped his hand tightly. They made for the perfect couple.

‘Hey,' shouted The Sheriff as I came in, ‘another accident of war.'

‘How you doing?'

‘He's doing fine,' Jasmine said, ‘aren't you, petal? We're going to get you nicely bandaged up and then you'll be fit for action, once more, if you know what I'm saying.'

She laughed loud, so did The Sheriff and so did I. It felt like the first time in ages that I had cracked open a smile.

‘You going to be alright for tonight?' The Sheriff asked me. ‘You don't want blood dripping all over your tunes.'

‘I'll be cool. And you?' The Sheriff winked at me.

‘Raring to go, my friend, raring to go. Nothing like a decent afternoon's rumble with scumbags to set you up for the night.'

‘Where's P. or Amanda? I haven't checked them yet.'

‘The cops pulled Amanda and P. went down there to bail her out. He told me to tell you that he'll check you down the club.'

‘Are they alright?'

‘I should say so. P. clobbered quite a few of them before they got Amanda. Ten nil to us, I reckon.'

‘Ten-two,' Jasmine said, looking at the both of us. ‘I better split. You'll be okay?'

‘Nothing we can't handle.'

I belled a cab from the hospital pay phone and as I was waiting for the car, I thought of popping in briefly on Daddy Cecil and embarrassing the hell out of him, but as he and his boys had been right in the thick of it all, I resisted.

He and I would always go our separate ways, that was for sure, but we'd joined up when it mattered and you can't say better than that. The cab arrived and, checking the time, I decided, on a whim, to go visit Papa's as a great hunger had now taken the place of the sickness and needed dealing with, fast. Papa was just starting to close when I reached but one sight of the swab I held to my head and he was calling out to Marissa to fetch the first aid box, making me sit still as a statue as he personally attended to the dried up wound placing a huge plaster over its ugly face.

Just as he had finished there was a tap at the window and there stood Brother P. and Amanda, smiling away, motioning Papa to open the door. For the next hour, as Papa and Marissa organised food, we sat around the table, relating the day's events, with the Brother P. confirming that five of the caveman would be waking up tomorrow with eyes the colour of his skin.

‘Couldn't do much more because this one started in on that copper we met. You know the young bolshy one? Amanda told him to his face what she thought of him and his parentage.'

‘Yeah, he deserved it,' she chimed in proudly. ‘So it was all down to the cop shop to bail her out.'

‘And?'

‘No charges, believe it or not,' she informed us.

‘I've got to tell you about Daddy Cecil, P. but you must keep it quiet for the time being.'

After I relayed the fable, Brother P. leant back in his chair.

‘You see,' he said, ‘John Thomas does have his uses after all. He may well be the best bet ever for race relations in this country.'

Papa entered from the kitchen expertly carrying plates of steaming spaghetti bolognese on both arms, which he placed in front of us, and we dug in like this was the last supper, polishing off everything laid before us in complete silence, except for that delicious sound of food being enjoyed by each and every one.

It was just as the cappuccinos arrived that Paolo turned up, walking in with his ever present football bag slung over his shoulder.

‘I'll get your dinner,' Marissa said, departing for the kitchen and leaving the only vacant seat, right next to Papa. The young man sat down and Papa reached over and poured him a glass of wine.

‘You have a game tomorrow?' he enquired of his son.

‘Yes, Papa,' Paolo warily replied, taking a sip of wine and not even looking his father in the face.

‘What time?'

‘Two o'clock kick off.'

‘Good. I'll take you there after mass.' Paolo went to say something, I know not what, but Papa raised his hand and silenced him.

‘Your friends have been in the wars today,' he said motioning to us. ‘Perhaps they will tell you all about it.'

Fortified by the food and the company, it was such good fortuna to sit around the table, safe and satisfied as we all put in our pennyworths and filled in Paolo on the incredible roller coaster of events, his eyes growing even larger when some of the incidents were described. I could have sat there all night but a check on the watch told me that it was time to head homeways, pick up my tunes and make it to The Unity for my last session there. As Brother P.'s four wheeler was parked outside, we made with the kisses and the ciao's ciao's to the Supinos, for they had treated us like their own, and clambered in and made our way back to my yard.

As I was getting my tunes together, and feeling like I had been up for two days already, Amanda turned on the TV and when the news came on, they flashed up a brief report on Riversdown. It was strange to see the battle from various TV angles and as we looked for each other in the melee of crowd shots and running coppers, I suddenly started thinking, for no apparent reason, of all those numbers, living out in England's quiet country villages, who right now would be clocking the screen in outrage and wondering out aloud to their families about whatever happened to the good old days. No doubt, they would cluster, that very night, down at the local Tory bar and shout at the top of their voices for national service and flogging to be brought back in, not realising that the good old day, if it ever really existed, was gone and buried, and that, in fact, it was far more dangerous to walk their streets alone than ever it is mine.

Forgive these ponderings for now it was time to split and, ignoring the twenty or so messages on my answer machine requesting that their names be put on the guest list, we lugged my record boxes down the stairs, and made for The Unity. When we reached, a large crush of faces and numbers, bright and youthful, crowded around the door.

Luckily, Rajan spotted us and we squeezed through the space he created and into the club where J.J. had already started spinning. I dumped my tunes by him and went for a little walkabout. The first cat I bumped into was Stinga, sporting a distinct Malcolm X. look and standing solo. I still didn't know what had gone off between him and Jasmine and so had no inkling to tell him that I was with her and The Sheriff some hours ago.