Fire rush, p.9
Fire Rush, page 9
‘Fuck the ice,’ she says. She slips and sprawls.
‘Tek time!’ I say.
I hold my arm out to her. She stands up and walks forward, her hands wide, one small step at a time.
A light beams on to us from further ahead and we’re in a tunnel of white. The canal, the holly, the gritted path, everything sparkling raw, metallic cold.
‘What’s going on?’ It’s Siobhan from the barge cafe. She’s standing on the deck in her dressing gown, waving a torch, her vessel entombed in the ice.
I grab Asase’s hand and she steps back on to the towpath.
‘Where’s my bag? No blood-claat man’s gonna mess with me,’ she says.
‘Are you OK? Let me see,’ I say.
Torchlight widens around us. Siobhan is running our way.
‘Let’s head home,’ I say. ‘You’re hurt.’
‘Nah, nah. He’s not messing up my night,’ Asase says.
‘Your coat is damp. You’ll catch pneumonia.’
‘I said I’m OK!’ Her eyes look odd, unfocused. She’s rubbing her neck and moving her head from side to side.
‘He’s probably going to the Crypt,’ I say.
The feel of Crab Man’s body pressed against mine is still under my skin. Yes, I’m still afraid of him, but I’m just as afraid of what might happen if my imagination grows wings and my rage flies out.
‘Mek him. Eustace will deal with him,’ Asase says.
Of course she’s set on going. Eustace will be there.
Siobhan is next to us. I tell her what happened, and she shines the torch around the bush, searching. She picks up Asase’s bag.
‘He must have got back onto the road,’ she says. ‘I didn’t see him as I came up.’ She says we should come on board; she’ll warm us up with tea.
I say yes. But Asase insists she’s OK.
‘Mind yerselves. That one’s trouble,’ Siobhan says. ‘Always hanging around here. He knows it’s a shortcut lots of women take.’
We walk with her to her boat and she gives us her torch to take with us. The wind picks up. Dead sounds of Oraca’s trumpeter blowing sea chills into my body.
* * *
*
When we finally make it to the Crypt, Bongo Natty is on the upper floor behind the table, collecting the money. Box Bwoys are eating rice and peas and stewed chicken from plastic containers. Sweet gyals in silk pleated skirts, suede bombers, velvet turbans and gold-tipped shoes are swaying next to them.
Asase asks Bongo Natty if he’s seen Crab Man.
‘Sisters, sisters,’ he says, ‘you come again bringing your riddim. Sound always comes full circle. Like the revolution. Crab Man isn’t here.’
She begs a puff from one of the Box Bwoys and pulls hard on the spliff. Her hand is shaking. Her pupils are dilated, her eyeballs are cross-firing notes. I’m angry with Crab Man too, but it’s her mood that’s worrying me.
We go downstairs into the Crypt. There are only a few groups of people, it’s still early. A light is on around the decks. The maintenance crew are still messing with cables, the engineer’s tuning the system, the MC’s warming up the mic: ‘One – two – three. Irie. Irie.’ The dance won’t get going for another hour or so.
Watchya nuh: man dem decide when the dance starts.
Man dem decide who’s gonna dance with who.
Man dem decide when the dance is done.
I see Lego in a corner of the room, near a locked doorway. Bongo Natty told us that it leads to a northern chamber, down into vaults, some filled with coffins. Lego makes his way towards us. I tell him what happened with Crab Man. He says he’ll stay close to us through the night. He builds a spliff and I drag hard on the sensimilla. Fill myself up with spirit. Go down into worlds where there’s nothing but sound.
As we head towards midnight, the Crypt fills up with gold-drenched dancers and silver whistle-blowers. Double-speed drum kick-kick-kicking. Reverbs and delays haunted with spirituals.
Misty in Roots are on the makeshift stage – eight serious-looking men dressed in black leather jackets, berets and African print shirts. Small spotlights on them.
‘Welcome to a rootical live session. History is destiny,’ the lead singer calls out. ‘We ah go throw down some sound bombs tonight!’
Percussion and piano likks and we’re calling out to Jah Jah. Flailing our heads like whips. Musical drones and everyone knows when the first bomb’s gonna drop.
Silence. I buckle. One, two, three: drums and bass explode. Feel my lungs fill with bubbles of sound.
Misty in Roots are chanting and scatting, marching as they play. Soldiers on the front line firing their weapons.
A backwash of treble. My backbone curving, an ancient movement from that first landing from sea to land. The first gasp for air.
Eustace is on the other side of the Crypt, moving between different groups, talking. He stops inside an archway with a group of women. I don’t know them. They’re dressed in wafty, halter-neck midis. Short, sleek hairstyles. Eustace nods in our direction and looks away.
‘New year, new year,’ the singer calls out again. ‘Time is the master.’ And I remember that’s the last thing Eustace said to me before I left his shop last week.
One of the women says something to Eustace. He laughs. They’re close-dancing.
A granular buzz in the air that reminds me of falling snow. Chills in my bones as the massive sway and flow.
I look at Asase. Her neck is thrust up like she don’t business. She’s sipping white rum from her hip flask, side-stepping in her leather trousers, the seams stitched like scars; foundation a little lighter than her skin colour; lipstick as dark as her mood.
Lights flashing, whistles blowing, the singer counting down to midnight. A wailing siren track and a cymbal clash. Black soundbox is shaking. I see Koromantyn women inside, busting old-time moves, their wombs wired for sound, ovaries – left side, right side – filled with red-seed echoes, two million voices.
The lights go off just before a big-bang explosion of dub kick drums.
I close my eyes and buckle under sonic compression of strings and reeds and brass. The DJ toasting lyrics.
‘New Year Version right about now
live and direct from Jamdown.
riddimmmm maccaaaaa!’
‘I’m going over there,’ Asase shouts in my ear.
Her eyes still don’t look right. She’s buzzing, pure energy. I put my hand on her arm. She shrugs me off and I watch her push through the crowd, smoke trailing her.
Asase steps between the woman and Eustace and wags her finger in Eustace’s face. He’s shaking his head and tries to turn away, but Asase sidesteps in front of him. He takes hold of her arm and leads her towards the arched door.
I wind my waist faster, try to get the cold feeling outta my body.
Dubplate’s laced with gunfire popping, a soft waxy track that warps on the deck. The crowd roars, slash-and-burn skanking. Eight-bar drums with reverb, phaser and slurred ghost vocals. Four, five, six riddims and Asase ain’t come back.
Suddenly the lights are flashing and the record scratches to a halt. Dancers sway, unsteady, pulled from the outtasphere before time. Men run up the stairway. I shade my eyes from the light.
There are shouts from the floor above. Someone yells: ‘Call an ambulance!’ People push towards the stairs. I follow them, running out the main door and upstairs to the small entrance on the side of the church. Outside to the churchyard where church lights and moonlight are bearing down on a group circling a woman, one of the regular Crypt dancers. She’s kneeling on a fur jacket in the snow. Eustace is lying on the ground, his eyes open like two flat stones in stagnant water. The woman puts her jacket on his chest. His eyes droop and his head rolls to one side. Blood blossoms into the snow near his left shoulder. I gag and swallow bile, my legs give way and I’m on my knees rocking back and forth, crying. I feel the cold go into my bones as the smoke from people’s breath rises. Cars stream past, making a noise like the sea rolling away from the shore. The circle of people press inwards.
‘Get back,’ Bongo Natty shouts. ‘Let the woman do her t’ing.’
No one moves.
Sirens are blueing up the air.
I can’t see Asase in the crowd.
The ambulance crew is on the floor beside Eustace within minutes. The woman stands up, the hem of her skirt wet. Blood on her hands. Bongo Natty puts his jacket around her shoulders and pulls her face into his chest. They’re shaking. Eustace stares up at the stars. Says something, then his eyes close.
More sirens. Indigo lights scanning the sky.
They put Eustace on a stretcher and drive away. Sirens blaring. Everyone stands there, dazed. Lego is jabbing his stick in the air like a spear.
‘Have you seen Asase?’ I ask him.
He pushes me away and starts skanking, jabbing his stick-spear, singing: ‘Fire rush inna me bredrin.’
I grab his stick. ‘Where is she?’
‘Fire rush inna me, sistren,’ he says.
8
Dissonance
A helicopter is outside the window. A jarring noise, breaking up the sporadic winter birdsong. Me and Irving are on the small terrace, seventeen floors high. He’s wearing his navy shirt, camel jacket, baggy wool trousers and a tweed flat cap. Smouldering cigarette stuck on his bottom lip. His pockmarked, olive-skinned face and black moustache slicked with coconut oil.
‘Look deh,’ he says, pointing to the police helicopter flying in circles, flashing red lights in the winter sky. ‘Peenie-wally – firefly.’
The aircraft bobs on acoustic blue streams and bubbling white clouds. Pressure-wave winds burn my cheeks. I’ve been calling Asase’s house for two days, but no one answers. Won’t know what to believe until I see her, but Eustace is still in the hospital in a critical condition. The rumour going around is that he was stabbed in the back. I shudder.
‘Dem is bugs,’ Irving says of the crawling Black Maria police vans on the streets below.
The neighbours are bug-like too. I went to the corner shop earlier, and they were creeping through the dim hallways, scuttling away. Voices behind closed doors, low-frequency loops.
I look at the tiny figures below, old women dragging trolleys, young children running around the swings and the rusty slide.
The helicopter floats upwards and I imagine what the pilot can see looking down. Tower blocks, neat columns in straight rows, orderly as a slave-ship mortality list.
Why are the towers built so close to the sky? Segregation by airspace.
‘I going to Hezekiah. Man-and-man fe talk about this,’ Irving says. ‘Eustace was hard-working. Is a bad-bad business.’
He will go find his bredrin Hezekiah, Asase’s father, at the Wolf Pub, where they usually meet with other men in the first week of the new year, putting the world to rights. There’s a dread feeling in my gut that things are shifting further out of their control.
* * *
*
He comes back an hour later. I hear the front door slam and he calls me out of my room. We stand in the hallway under the dingy light of the red, tasselled lampshade.
‘Asase stab Eustace!’ Irving says. ‘Look now! Trouble fe everybody.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Bongo Natty heard cussing in the churchyard. Him see Asase with Eustace, carrying on bad. Police hunting her.’
I squat on to my haunches to stop myself falling. ‘Uh-uh, can’t be.’
‘Hope you nuh mixed up in this.’
My heartbeat’s in my ears on a loop, loud-loud.
‘That family finish,’ Irving says. ‘Retribution now. Stay away from them.’ He walks towards the front door.
‘Where are you going?’ I ask.
‘Fe mind me business. Stay in de yard until them find her.’
‘I’m not a child!’
He goes out and slams the door. I go back to the balcony, scanning the sky and streets below.
The helicopter hovers close to a terrace in the next block and a man leans over the wall, waving his arms. I think of the people who’ve jumped from the Tombstone towers over the years, their bodies hanging in blue air like dissonant chords.
The red light of the helicopter flashes through the window.
I don’t know what to feel. All I’m aware of is a dread feeling, like cold water running down my spine.
The lights flash, the helicopter disappears into clouds. Police with sniffer dogs are running across the estate, the animals barking and growling. The clanging sound of black metal bins being dragged out of the rubbish rooms. I lean over the railing, my body full of electricity.
* * *
*
The doorbell’s ringing. Someone’s holding their finger on the buzzer.
I go to the hallway, fling the door open. ‘What?’
A man with cropped red hair, sideburns. He’s wearing an unbuttoned black raincoat, shifting from side to side, trying to look friendly. I know he’s police – that patented power smile; the measured, cold-blooded movements of his hands.
‘Detective Simeon Grey.’ He holds out his ID. ‘May I?’ He steps forward.
Watchya, there’re only three kinda ways Babylon come inna yuh yard:
Entry One: knock on the door, smiley-smiley, twist up facts, wheedling and whining for intel.
Options: nuff.
Entry Two: to arrest someone, flinging open dis and dat, nuff bangarang to blood-claat.
Options: none. Best let them mash-up yuh place.
Entry Three: bruck-down-door dawn raid inna. Kick-down anyone in sight.
Options: forget it!
Don’t know if this one’s got backup somewhere outta sight. I block him.
He shakes his head and makes a sound that could be a laugh or a grunt of disgust.
‘Your people don’t talk much, do they?’ he says.
‘As if anyone’s blood-claat listening!’ I shout. I hear doors opening, neighbours whispering in the corridor.
‘Asase Shand,’ he says, and he slides his foot over the edge of the doorway. ‘An incident two nights ago.’
I pull the door closer to my body.
‘A seriously wounded man. Friend of yours?’
‘Eustace is gonna be OK?’ My tone softer now.
He puts his hand on the door and pushes it. I kiss my teeth and stand aside. He follows me into the front room, sits in Irving’s hard-backed one-seater. I perch on the armrest of the sofa opposite him. He’s got a broad, square head. Droopy, red eyelids, like tongues, conceal the top of his eyes.
‘Asase was seen with Mr Frankson,’ he says. ‘She had a knife. She’s your best mate, I hear. Know where she is?’
‘No.’
‘You were with her at the Crypt. See anything?’
‘She went outside. I stayed downstairs.’
‘What did she say before she left you?’
‘She was going up for air. She needed to breathe. All our people do.’
He stands up, looks down at me, clears his throat. ‘Mr Frankson was her fella, was he?’ His voice is deeper.
‘No,’ I say.
He goes outside to the balcony, looks down on to the street and across towards the wastelands. ‘Where would you go if you were on the run?’
I think about it. With Moose gone, there’s nowhere I could go.
I say the place I hide from Babylon is inside dub riddims. Drum. Bass.
He comes back into the living room. ‘That so?’ He says something under his breath, then goes and looks at one of Muma’s paintings on the wall. ‘Why do you lot dance in a crypt? That’s for dead people.’
I stand in front of the painting, block his view. ‘It’s a refuge from Babylon,’ I say.
He raises his eyebrows. The droopy eyelids lift and I see the full shape of his eyes, alert, suddenly bright.
He walks to the front door and pushes it wide. As I’m pushing it shut he says that if I see Asase I should tell her to hand herself in – it’s too cold to be on the run.
I say we don’t need nobody telling us how cold it is on the outside and slam the door.
* * *
*
It’s headline news three days later. Asase was found hiding in the chambers below the Crypt. Lego must have helped her. But the article says nothing about him being captured or turning her in.
I look at the morning paper: DEVIL WOMAN’S SAINTLY HIDEOUT. I can’t imagine Asase crouched down in the darkness among the brown dust of the dead.
I call Bongo Natty, the newspaper still spread out on the floor.
‘Who is this?’ he says.
‘Yamaye,’ I say. I don’t know why he’s acting as if he doesn’t recognise my voice. His young daughter is shouting in the background. He tells me to hold on, he’s going somewhere private to speak.
I ask if Eustace is OK.
‘Your friend jook him in his back. Right on the man’s artery.’ His voice is cold, accusatory. ‘He was walking away.’
‘He’s going to be OK, isn’t he?’
‘No joke what she did.’ Every word unmodulated: Bleng. Bleng. Bleng.
I want to say, Bongo Natty, it’s me, Yamaye. Don’t do me like this. But I just ask, ‘Which hospital? Can I visit?’
An explosion of breath. ‘Yamaye, check yourself! His people don’t wanna catch sight of Asase’s friends. Man nearly bled to death. He’s lucky to be alive.’
‘But I—’
‘Loreen is moving the family to Brighton.’
‘But the shop.’
‘Locked-off. FOR SALE sign going up any time soon.’
‘That’s Eustace’s life,’ I say. But I want to scream out that it’s my life too. The last place of refuge in Norwood.
