Where are we going?
Tony’s reply was lost in the sound of rushing air, but soon enough we found ourselves pulling into a small crescent half-way down the Harrow Road.
It’s a cemetery, said Colin.
Not a cemetery. Not just any boneyard. It’s a necropolis. A city of the dead, said Tony.
Tony slammed on the brakes, sending me and Colin piling forward into the front seats. We flipped back as the car came to a halt. My head banged against an exposed piece of chassis at the back of my seat.
Ow.
You’re going to forgive me, said Tony.
Now that we had stopped, the heat suddenly began to build again. Tony had reached into his pocket and brought out a small white-paper folded envelope, about an inch long and half an inch square. He waved it in front of his face as if fanning himself.
Sulphate? said Nodge, looking mildly pleased.
Tony shook his head and took a single-sided razor blade out of his top pocket.
We can do better than bathtub speed today. This is the Moment of Freedom. This is the Declaration of Independence. The Magna fucking wossname. We have a Cortina Ghia Mark V. We have Hofmeister beer. Many cans. We have a big fat sun. We have each other. And furthermore and to boot and to wit, we have two grams of A-grade toot.
What’s that? said Colin. There was a large dark patch down the front of his shirt where the beer stain was still drying out.
Coke. It’s coke, said Nodge. For one of the very few times in his life, I could tell he was truly impressed.
Colin immediately looked nervous. He rarely did drugs, except blow, which even then made him paranoid and restless.
We all got out of the car and trooped in a line into the vast deserted cemetery. The air was absolutely still. Tony knelt down by a gravestone with the name worn away. He surveyed the scene around him.
Stiff city. It’s what we’ve all got coming. Forty, maybe fifty years. You can’t waste it. It’s not a rehearsal.
Underneath, cool black marble. He began carefully levering out some of the white powder in the envelope on to the gravestone, making small shovelling motions with the edge of the blade. All of us fell into silence. Coke then wasn’t like it is now, cheap, plentiful, about as rebellious as a large advocaat. It was still a bit unusual, expensive, rock-star speed. We were a little in awe, a little nervous. Somewhere in the distance a police siren sounded. Colin started, but the rest of us ignored it, hypnotized by the forbidden ritual that was taking place, made more religious still by the presence of the dead all around us.
Tony made little chopping movements until the powder was separated into four lines. One of the monuments threw a shadow, cooling us. There was a sense of time suspended. I watched an ant scramble over the marble until it disappeared into the earth.
Tony had rolled a ten-pound note into a cylinder. Then he was leaning over, bending right in half from the waist. There was an inhalation of breath and he straightened up, sniffing loudly. He wet a finger, cleared up what was left of the powder on his line and rubbed it on his gums.
Colin look perplexed.
What are you doing that for?
You just do it. Something you do. Deadens the gums.
What do you want to deaden your gums for?
The question, unanswerable then as it is today, was left to hang. Nodge was repeating Tony’s movements now, bending down and sniffing. He tossed his head back as if it would help the powder reach his lungs.
I took the rolled-up note and ingested the line of powder. It burned my nostril and I immediately felt an infuriating itch develop. I rubbed hard at the bridge of my nose to try and rid myself of the sensation. Tony was smoking the Mahawatts non stop now, sending out an odour of liquorice and tobacco.
Then Colin was fumbling with the rolled-up banknote. He was clearly nervous; I sensed he didn’t want to do it, but that he didn’t want to lose face in front of everyone. He began to bend, then dropped the banknote, reached for it on the floor and rerolled it imperfectly so that it coiled outwards at one end, like the point of an outsize crayon. He rammed this up his right nostril and bent suddenly down towards the last line of cocaine, and immediately exhaled. The fine powder dissipated into the air in a tiny cloud, catching Colin in the face. When he came up, a screen of white powder covered his already pale face. Tony and I started laughing, while Nodge, trying as ever to keep control, dampened himself down to a broad smile.
Sorry… I… I’m not used to…
Colin was blushing and gasping slightly. The banknote was still thrust up his nose, looking like a proboscis.
After the gale of laughter blew out, Tony cut Colin another line, and this time he managed to take it in, although with much subsequent hawking and throat clearing.
After a while, we headed back to the car. Tony revved it, cranking up the Pioneer to maximum volume; this time Frankie Goes to Hollywood and ‘Two Tribes’. The car seemed to rock at the power of the bass line. Tony reversed out of the driveway. We laughed as the car rocked.
It was still only around noon and the sun was directly overhead. I could feel the effects of the cocaine now, pumping my heart, lifting my mood still further. We were all singing along with the tape.
The Cortina skidded round the corner, throwing us against the sides of the car. Colin was giggling as he fell across my lap, and I pushed him back upright.
Tony screamed to a halt by the side of a patch of empty playing field, on which were erected two unnetted goals at either end of a poorly marked football pitch. He switched off the engine, reached into the glove compartment, pulled out another can of beer and yelled, Chelsea vs. QPR! The Hofmeister Bush League, Division One.
He slid out of the car, opened the boot and took out a small camera and threw it towards me. I caught it with one hand. He struck a he-man pose and I took a shot, then pocketed the camera. He brought out a black and white vinyl football from the boot and took a kick at it, sending it flying into the centre of the field. Nodge leapt from the other side and chased it. The cocaine had given him an extra thrust so that he seemed to cover the ground like lightning. Colin, me and Tony followed, each holding a can of Hofmeister. We tossed to see who was going to be stuck with being Chelsea.
It was odd that day – wherever we went, we seemed to see no one else, as if we were living in a private sealed off universe. The streets were deserted, and this park, which was backed on to by several large housing estates, was quite empty, apart from a runty dog that ran back and forth at the end of the pitch, as if maddened by the heat.
I felt omnipotent, invulnerable as we squared up to each other, me and Colin as QPR, Tony and Nodge as Chelsea. The drug and the sunshine surged through me like wild electricity, and I looked at the laughing faces of my friends and I felt a secret adoration; it was as if we had known each other for ever and would know each other for ever. The dog barked in the distance. Somewhere the clack of train wheels could be heard.
When we played it seemed impossible to get tired, despite the heat and the fact that it was only two on two on a full-sized football pitch. We’d all taken our shirts off, Colin pocked and pale, Nodge stocky and red, Tony tall, olive and muscled, me medium height, average build, but my infirmity, my birthmark, now glowing red and luminous in the sun, as if to compensate for all the awesomely median aspects of the rest of me.
Normally when we play games an intensity of competition falls among us, but this time it all seemed glorious, soft, generous. We played well, despite the drink and cocaine; the pitch seemed to shrink, the goals expanded. It was just us four in this wide-open green space, and the dog prowling the perimeter. At one point, when the score was squared, Nodge took a long shot and headed for the goal right from the half-way line. It landed, was trickling away past the left hand post, when the dog suddenly rushed on to the field and butted it right into the middle of the goal. Classic Nodge luck. Tony and Nodge collapsed on to their backs, felled by their own laughter, while Colin chased after the dog, loudly claiming a foul. It didn
’t matter. Nothing mattered that day. The present opened up from a spotlight into a floodlight, and we were in the centre of it, moving like happy, gloriously stupid ghosts.
After forty minutes in the hot sun, we finally began to flag, and sat down together in the centre circle. Hair matted, all gasping for breath, we stretched out under the sun. I turned my head to level with the playing field and watched the distortions in the air that the heat caused, bending the white light. Far in the distance, I saw a patch of deep blue on the extreme edge of the park.
I think there’s a pool up there, I said in a voice hardly above a whisper. The words drifted into the air between us like vapour.
Impossible, said Nodge.
Why? said Tony, still short of breath. A slight peeling of skin had developed around his neck. Tomorrow he would suffer.
It would be too perfect, said Nodge.
Nodge, then as now, believed all events slanted towards misfortune, despite his personal flair for small lucky accidents.
Let’s take a gander anyway, I said.
Each of us hauled himself upright and began trudging to where the patch of blue appeared to be. As we got closer, it became clear that what I had seen was indeed a pool, a children’s paddling pool. At one end, a mock waterfall, spuming white water. Surrounded by melting tarmac, it was perfectly blue. Incredibly, it was also completely deserted.
Tony was first through the open gate, ripping off what remained of his clothes as he went. His cock and balls threw themselves up and down pneumatically as he ran. He took off at a flying leap, into the deep end, which still came only up to his knees. Immediately he fell on his back and went under, then came up spouting a jet of water from his mouth and singing the Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams are Made of This’.
Each of us by now had also taken his clothes off completely. Colin was last to do it, and turned his back slightly as he stripped. We all fell into the pool, silently now. An almost reverent mood had fallen upon us. We stretched our bodies out under the water. White patches marked out the areas left by swimming trunks. The water was cool but not cold. The sound of the waterfall dashed against our ears.
I don’t know how long we sat in that city pool, unmoving apart from a slight sway with the water, not speaking apart from the occasional punctuation of a long satisfied sigh. Light reflected off the surface of the pool and on to our faces, creating liquid patterns on the skin. Occasionally a jet liner would pass overhead. The dog in the distance still barked, but these seemed to be the only sounds.
At one point I took out a camera from somewhere and told everyone to pose, naked. We all held up our beer cans under the sun, we all laughed with real laughter. The football floated in the pool. I set the camera to automatic and it made a click that echoed around the park.
Then, out of nowhere, sitting in that pool, I was filled with a sudden gasp of sadness. It lasted only a second, like a miniature imitation of the earlier ecstasy, but seemed to hit with enough force to knock the air out of me. It was some mixed-up sense that I was at a strange fulcrum in my life. Nothing could ever be this perfect again, I knew, and this moment would slide away into other moments, moments full of imperfection and indifference and low boredom. The sensation of loss pierced me like a slaughterhouse bolt; suddenly I could see myself years in the future, looking back on this day, wondering what had happened to this shining moment and why it had never happened again. Then, as suddenly as it came, the sadness passed. The bubble of our mood was broken anyway by a shout.
What do you think you’re doing? This is for kids. And put your bloody clothes on.
Unseen by us, the park keeper had come from behind the rhododendron bushes that flanked the pool. He had a pointed stick for picking up litter that he was waving generally in our direction. Despite the heat, his uniform and shirt were fully buttoned and he was wearing a tie. A good old-fashioned parkie. I had thought they were extinct.
Christ, it’s the filth, said Tony, mock-terrified.
Best do a runner, said Nodge, continuing what was a well-rehearsed joke.
It’s a fair cop. But society’s to blame, I added, finishing the performance.
We all started laughing again, but obediently left the pool nevertheless and, shaking and rubbing ourselves dry with our T-shirts, we got dressed. The park keeper watched us resentfully. I watched back; he was in his fifties, bald, full of fury and disappointment. I wondered what life did to people. I wondered how it soured them. Suddenly I felt pity for the parkie, all stuffed into his shirt and suit. Somehow I felt his envy at us, and our opportunities yet to be wasted. Dressed now, I wandered over to him.
Sorry, mate. We didn’t know it wasn’t allowed.
I looked into his eyes, which were yellowing around the cornea. They seemed glacial, empty, sorrowful. He was filling up with something, some emotion he didn’t want to acknowledge. He took his eyes away from mine and glanced in the general direction of the pool.
Just go home.
But when he spoke this time, it was with a weary, defeated tone, all the anger bled out of it. I felt the strangest desire to put my hand on his shoulder, but then he turned and walked away from the pool.
In formation, this time spread out and parallel with the horizon, like a chorus line, we began walking back across the park towards Tony’s Cortina. The chlorine was stinging my eyes, but I still felt refreshed, glowing. We murmured rather than talked on the way back, kicking at dandelions and idly casting stickballs at each other. Although we were nearly adults, there were melting centres within us that were still possessed of the qualities and knowledge of children. But that childhood somehow within us I knew was ebbing, on the cusp of being lost.
We went to the pub after that, a big old barn of a place ten miles out into the deep suburbs – somewhere like Uxbridge or Pinner. Again, it was more or less empty, and we drank ice-cold beer under parasols in the garden and ate Ploughman’s Lunches with piccalilli and onions. By the time three o’clock and closing time came around, we were beginning to feel sleepy; the running, the sun and the aftermath of the cocaine had given us a kind of perfect languor.
We climbed into the Cortina, uncertain what to do next, but not much minding. Tony started the engine and eased the car into gear. There was a friendly, pre-season QPR match that evening. That was four hours away. We decided to head back to Tony’s, drink some more beer and finish up the remainder of the cocaine.
I noticed that Tony’s lids were becoming heavy as we headed back towards Shepherd’s Bush. In the distance, the floodlights of Loftus Road could be seen, towering over the White City Estate. A gentle snoring came from Colin’s direction; he was slumped down into the seat. Nodge too had his eyes closed. The underpass at Hanger Lane was closed, so we headed up the slip road towards the roundabout with the North Circular. I vaguely sensed that Tony seemed to approach the red lights rather fast.
Out of nowhere, there was the sound of breaking glass. Tony, not far from a condition of stupor, looked up. He had clipped the taillight of a black taxi cab waiting at the stop line. The driver’s face was set in a rictus of fury. He was beginning to get out of the cab.
It was Nodge who reacted first. He had, then, a reckless streak that could surface and surprise everybody with his lack of concern for consequences.
Motor it! he screamed, as Tony fumbled for the gear stick.
I sat bolt upright, looking confused. Colin slept on, a slight smile playing about his lips. Tony revved the big motor on the Cortina, swung past the turning cab, through the red lights and into the roundabout system. I was aware of Hanger Lane Central Line station like a flying saucer made by Trabant, a circle of glass atop a wider circle of plain concrete.
I turned round to look at the cab, which was coming behind us. I could see the driver speaking into a microphone.
He’s radioing his mates, I shouted.
Tony was cackling like a maniac now and pulling round the curve of the roundabout. The Cortina, despite its beaten-up bodywork, was tuned up and powerful.
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As we turned the curve rightward coming towards the eastbound exit for the A40, I saw another black cab going in the opposite direction down one of the slip roads off the roundabout. As I watched it, I became aware of a faint squeal of brakes. I screamed at Tony, who had turned Heaven 17’s ‘Temptation’ up full blast on the Pioneer.
Fucking hell. He’s doing a U-ey.
Tony turned in his seat, and we could now see this other, second taxi driver also talking into his radio. He was close enough for me to make him out through the windscreen – big, meaty, with a cropped head. All sense of tiredness had left us now.
Colin had woken up and was craning his neck to see what was happening. He started saying, quietly, afraid, Don’t you think we ought to pull over?
But Tony was flushed with excitement; it. was clear he had no intention of stopping.
We made it on to the A40 and motored down towards Gypsy Corner. There was a press of traffic at the lights, and we were forced to slow down and stop. Ten or fifteen vehicles behind us there was not one or two, but now four black taxi cabs. The nearest two to us were stopped in the traffic twenty yards back. I could see both of the drivers leaving the cabs and beginning to walk quickly towards us. They didn’t run. Somehow this fact was very threatening. Nodge pointed to a sign on our left that had an arrow indicating the Central Middlesex Hospital.
That’s handy, he said, absolutely deadpan.
Fuck! They’re coming, I shouted, now genuinely frightened.
Drivers in other cars were turning towards us to see what was happening.
Tony revved the engine pointlessly. The cabbies were closing in; in ten, twenty seconds they would be upon us.
Lock your doors! he shouted, as the first one made the rear of the car. He was big, tattooed on both arms, with a face like raw meat. We could see him, but, because of the tinted glass, he couldn’t see us. He gave an almighty yank at the rear door, but we had managed to get the locks down. He began hammering on the roof. Ten yards behind, the second taxi driver was approaching with a crowbar in his hand.