White City Blue

  Please please please please please please, I muttered, staring intently at the traffic lights ahead of us.

  I was stiff with apprehension now. Colin had gone into a foetal position. Even Tony was crouched over his steering wheel, as if the weight of his body would propel the car through the jam in front of us. Only Nodge seemed unafraid, solid.

  The lights had changed now and the three cars in the line ahead began to move. The car was already in gear; a gap appeared between our lane and the inside one. Tony flung the car forward, swerving the wheel to the left. Panicking, he let the clutch out too fast and stalled the car.

  Fucking ADA!

  Desperately he began to turn the key in the ignition again. There was a crash as the crowbar made contact with the boot of the car. The first taxi driver was now trying to force down the back window, pushing his fingers through a tiny gap at the top. His face was framed in the square of the reinforced glass, like a Gorgon, full of hate and anger. I felt my fear turning into terror; then the engine caught, and Tony sent the car hurtling forward past the lights. He swung it to the left. The taxi driver went flying on to his back behind us. A surge of relief as the car sped into the empty road ahead.

  The joy of escape possessed us now, stronger than any cocaine. We headed through the industrial estates that backed on to the A40, driving towards the shit capital of west London, Harlesden. Tony weaving at terrible speed round blind corners and through red lights to get away. Now he seemed exhilarated again.

  Is it going to be OK? said Colin, like a child to his father.

  As he spoke, another black cab came past us in the opposite direction. Again, he began to perform a U-turn.

  Jesus! said Tony.

  I stared at the cab, eyes widened.

  Nightmare. Every cab driver in London is out for our blood.

  It’s too late to give ourselves up now, said Nodge insouciantly, as if he was idly enjoying the whole performance. Then he said with a grin, They’ll murder us.

  Thanks for the pep talk, Nodge. We’re going to have to ditch the car, I said.

  Tony nodded in agreement, muttering at the same time, Uncle Vince is not going to be very happy.

  Nodge carried on smiling.

  It was probably half-inched anyway.

  We continued travelling towards Harlesden. It was uglier than the Goldhawk Road on a wet afternoon. There was warehouse after warehouse, lonely petrol stations, a railway bridge with one single slogan, ‘Support the Miners’, tragic pubs, a bargain basement of light industrial furniture. Tony turned sharply into a maze of back streets, twisting and turning the car round from one terrace to the next. After a while, the black cab seemed to disappear and Tony headed in the general direction of the High Road. We could see Harlesden Town Clock in front of us, a church to the right with a poster of a hang-gliding Christian in front of it. As we headed towards the main road again, a terrible vista unfolded before us. At least ten black cabs filled the one-way system around the clock, their engines idling, the drivers checking around them.

  We were all totally silent, even Nodge. Tony immediately swung the car round to the right into a small alleyway, a little cobbled almost-street. It was just wide enough to get a car down. The alleyway curved at the back behind a row of terraced houses, then came to a dead end, out of sight of the road. Tony pulled to a halt and we piled out into the alleyway, climbing over a wire fence. There were abandoned rubbish bags, broken prams.

  Leg it! yelled Tony, and as one beast, we raced down the alleyway and out into another street, indistinguishable from the rest – terraces of six, car-ports, pitched roofs.

  At the end of the street, we turned on to a pavement.

  Act normal, said Colin, and suddenly we all began giggling at the ludicrousness of the situation and at the impossible effort of doing what Colin had instructed.

  I noticed then that Nodge had had the self-possession to bring the football with him. He dropped it and we began kicking it to each other along the pavement.

  Then there was the sound of a diesel motor behind us. I turned. It was a black cab. Suddenly we stopped giggling. We slowed and started to walk, trying to muster nonchalance. The cab began to slow as it came towards us. The window came down and the taxi pulled over to where we were walking. Inside, the half man, half monkey who had whacked the car with a crowbar at the lights. I felt the colour drain out of my face. He looked at us without hostility but an edge of obvious suspicion. On his forearms, the tattoos were now clear. One was scrawly, blue. It read, ‘We are QPR’. The other was simply two letters: ‘NF’.

  Hello, lads. You seen a Cortina going down here anywhere?

  Nodge calmly caught the football off a kick from Tony. There was a slight pause before Nodge answered the driver.

  What colour?

  Gold. Tinted windows.

  Nodge nodded, as if considering carefully this new information.

  Yeah. It came belting round that corner at about 100 miles an hour and down towards Harlesden Circus.

  The taxi driver nodded, but didn’t move an inch. He seemed to be making his mind up about something. We were all frozen in place, trying to act normal. Then Nodge leant against the cab and pointed at the Rangers tattoo.

  You going to watch the match tonight?

  The taxi driver paused, then seemed to relax slightly.

  They your team?

  Come on you Rs! said Nodge, pulling back his jacket to reveal a small enamel QPR badge.

  He nodded gravely, as if a sergeant in the army recognizing someone of equivalent rank.

  Yeah, I’m going. Should be a fucking corker.

  Shame about Stainrod.

  Simon Stainrod, one of the key men, had pulled a hamstring in the previous match and was rumoured to be dropped for tonight.

  I heard he’s going to be OK. Least that’s what they said on the radio.

  Excellent! We’ll fucking hammer them, said Nodge, still as cool as a cucumber.

  The rest of us, I felt, looked nervous and guilty. The taxi driver scrutinized us, still suspicious, and opened his mouth to speak again. His voice was as ugly as his face, ignorant, cruel, violent.

  Did you see what they looked like?

  Tony spoke this time, clearly shamed by Nodge’s courage under fire. He had seen the NF tattoo.

  There were three of them – two were niggers and one was a white girl. They were laughing their heads off.

  The cab driver visibly brightened at the use of the word nigger.

  Spades, were they? With a white girl?

  Tony nodded. The taxi driver looked grim, but gave a thumbs-up and began to pull away.

  Probably on drugs. Pot, innit? Black bastards. Thanks, lads. Sweet. We’ll get the cunts, eh? Teach those fucking jungle bunnies a lesson. See you at the match, maybe.

  Yeah. Give the coons a smack from us, said Tony, grinning that famous grin.

  Nodge looked uncomfortable now. He sensed that Tony was enjoying this a bit too much. Even back in ’84 and not that politically committed, he had been on marches with the Anti-Nazi League. Tony liked to wind him up even then.

  But any tension between Nodge and Tony evaporated as we watched him begin speaking into his mike and then disappear around the corner. Then it was as if we all breathed out at the same moment, and began whooping and slapping each other on the back. It felt great, it felt real.

  We made it back on to the High Street, where a bus headed east was stuck in traffic. We pulled through the open platform and went upstairs and sat at the front. Downstairs, the street was packed with cabs, all with their lights turned off. Now we began to relax; looking down on the ranks of cabbies, we were overcome with a sense of power and triumph, of beating down the odds. We were invincible that day. We could all feel it now.

  By the time we got back to the Bush, the pubs were open again and we headed into the Bush Ranger in readiness for the game. The day was cooling now, but the pub was warm and welcoming. The big windows threw shafts of light into the room; we sat
in a puddle of yellow sun on the first floor. Tony was on top form, making us laugh with a string of filthy jokes. Colin wasn’t saying much, but smiling, sipping at his bitter shandy. Nodge smoked and blew rings. Everything was perfect.

  After a while, as the kickoff approached, a silence began to settle over us. Each of us had caught the sun, Nodge the worst. The room was filled with smoke now and the sunlight pushed through it, as if it were a projector in a pre-war cinema. There was music playing on the sound system, ‘The Look of Love’ by ABC, one of the greatest all-time records. I beat my fingers in time.

  Nodge then gestured towards the left of the pub.

  Take a butcher’s at that.

  At the far end of the room, sat at a small table under an old station clock, a man the same age as us, a half-finished drink in front of him. Next to him, a thin woman, her hair in bangs, wearing a tube top. She was young, but looked old. The couple were holding hands, but their faces were masks of boredom and irritation. Neither was speaking or looking at the other.

  It’s Pigshit! said Tony.

  All of us stared in his direction, taking in the scene. Pigshit Pete had left school the year before to join his father’s garage as an apprentice mechanic. His academic record was not good, hence his nickname. Thick-as-Pigshit Pete, Pigshit, also known as TAPP or Tappy. I didn’t recognize the woman with him, but we’d heard that he’d got engaged to someone or other.

  At that exact moment, Pigshit looked up and towards us. Something in his face registered recognition, and he gave a weak smile and raised his glass towards us. As one, we raised our glasses back. Pigshit’s face did not move away from us, nor did his hand leave the hand of the woman next to him. There was a look of very palpable longing on his thin, lumpen features. It was embarrassing in its intensity, like a starving man staring through the steamed-up windows of a restaurant. We each quickly looked away, as if we had spent too long observing a road accident.

  There was a long pause. Tony shook his head and drank deeply from his glass.

  Poor old Pigshit.

  Nodge began singing softly the Specials’ record ‘Too Much Too Young’.

  A new crowd of Rangers supporters crushed into the bar, cutting off the sight of the couple in the corner. They were chanting, Terry Venables’s Blue and White Army!

  We joined in, banging our glasses on the table, soaking the cork mats with spilt beer. After a few seconds, the chant died away.

  Tony looked around at us, his face suddenly grim. When he spoke, we could hardly hear him over the din of the pub.

  It’s been a great day, he said.

  We all nodded solemnly.

  It’s not over yet, said Nodge.

  No, no. But it’s been a great… day, Tony repeated. The sun, the pool, the parkie, the coke, the taxi cabs. Rangers. It’s hard to… He shook his head. The thing is… we should remember this day. Somehow. I mean, old Pigshit. There but for the grace of God…

  It easily happens, I said. Then you forget. You forget what things can be.

  Tony looked up again, eyes bright with intensity.

  That’s exactly it. That’s precisely what I’m saying. We need to remember what things can be. You leave school, you get a job, you get a girlfriend. All the shit starts to hit you, all the… necessity. Before you know it, you’re all dumbed up, like poor old Tappy. Then it’s the city of the dead, and… bing. All fucked up. Too late. The thing is to remember. To have a way of reminding yourself.

  We each nodded.

  You got to be Y, F and S, says Tony.

  We nodded as one. It stands for young, free and single. Nodge lit a cigarette. In those days he smoked No. 6. He stared outside the window, where there was, in full sight, a war memorial. A few tattered flowers lay around the base. He waved his hand towards the monument.

  We should have a commemoration. You know, like old gits do when it’s Armistice Day, or VJ Day or VD Day or whatever. All get together and whoop it up once a year.

  Tony slammed his fist down on the pine table, making the glasses jump.

  That’s it. Let’s do it. We’ll have a… a… commemoration. On this day, every year, the four of us get together. So when we’re doing our shit jobs and twisted round the fingers of some insane doris, we can meet like this and… and…

  Remind each other, I said.

  Yes, said Colin. Even he seemed worked up, transfixed.

  Remembering’s what counts.

  Nodge stood to his feet and raised his glass.

  14 August, he said.

  We all stood and put our glasses into the middle of the table and clinked them together. And then we sat in silence, like praying.

  Chapter Fifteen: 14 August 1998

  We met at the Bush Ranger as usual, had a few rounds. Tony was late, as usual. The three of us drank a toast anyway, with pub champagne. It was a nice day, hot and sticky like the first 14 August, all those years ago. As I sat there, wondering if I felt happy, I wondered if Veronica meant what she said about it being over between us. I had to assume that she did. Then I wondered if I wanted her to mean what she said.

  As we sat there, me, Nodge and Colin, fumbling for words, I found myself inspecting the faces of each of them, trying to remember what they had looked like when we first did this. Tony, who still hadn’t arrived, I knew was much the same – slicker, more expensively dressed, perhaps, but having lost no hair, the only signs of age being the faint imprint of crow’s-feet appearing by the edges of his eyes. But looking at Nodge, I could see he was fatter, sadder, more constipated, I would say. There was something rigid and regretful in him that I knew now, that I could momentarily remember, had once been absent. Colin had changed as little as Tony – he still had that defensive smile, that gathering in of himself as if preparing to defend himself from attack. Still, finally, the tortoise.

  And me; I didn’t know. I’d stopped being able to see myself years ago. Perhaps that’s why I had hitched up with Veronica. Because she was a mirror and I had forgotten about mirrors, and where they were hidden. And perhaps now I didn’t like what they showed you. What Veronica showed me.

  The conversation, having run out of road, sputtered and stopped. We waited another half-hour for Tony, still drinking. Things were going out of focus already.

  Tony wasn’t answering his mobile. Eventually we decided that we should head off without him – each in our separate cars – to the golf course at Perivale. It had been decided that we would play nine holes, have lunch there, then go drinking together in the afternoon. We presumed Tony would turn up. He usually did in the end, breezing in with charming apologies.

  Now, having had a clear run down the Uxbridge Road, I arrive at the slipway that leads to the golf course. There’s an ad for a Saab 95 on the hoarding as you enter. The catchline reads, ‘There Should Be No Forces Outside of Your Control’.

  Nodge and Colin are already there, in the café. Still no sign of Tony. Nodge is looking at his watch. He has a can of beer in his hand, as does Colin. We’re all drinking quite heavily, in order to cover up the gaps. That’s what drinking’s for, isn’t it?

  Nodge’s lips, always narrow, have tightened and thinned and he is smoking at a slightly higher rate than usual – I would estimate four an hour rather than three. Craven As of course. A few minutes ago, he allowed himself an exhale of breath that was too loud to be anything other than a public protest. He is getting angry, I’m sure of it.

  Why does that make me feel good, I wonder? I pick at the remnants of a toasted bacon and egg sandwich, ordered by Colin, uneaten, already gone cold. If Nodge gets angry, I will forgive Tony. I will forgive him anyway, sooner or later, but this time I will forgive him right away. Just for the pleasure of rattling Nodge’s cage. I chew at the bread and bacon fat, the taste subsumed under vinegary tomato ketchup.

  I notice that Colin, sat diagonally opposite Nodge, is picking his thin, angular, badly sunburnt nose. He removes something from the dark interior, then flicks it into the middle distance, where it disappears a
mong the collection of old cigarette packets, crumbs and spilt coffee that decorates the floor. He is reading the Daily Mirror.

  It’s hot in here. There’s a blankness in the air, a sense of something suspended. Dark patches of sweat are crawling out from the pits of Nodge’s Gap Essentials charcoal grey three-button sports shirt. It’s annoying him, but he won’t complain. He’ll sit there smoking and pretending he’s not bothered. His ankles revealed just beneath where his black Stone River Island chinos end, are as pale as cauliflower.

  They’re not real, are they?

  Colin is indicating, with a slight cock of his head, a colour photograph on the centre pages of the Mirror. A woman smiles brightly upwards, clad in a thong only. The thong is so tiny, she must be shaved. Her breasts protrude mightily from her chest, fully cantilevered. The nipples have been prepared so as to appear slightly hard. Her back is arched away from the camera; no flaws show.

  It’s hard to tell.

  I make a play of studying the photograph, squinting as if to get the newsprint into focus.

  It’s not the same any more, is it? says Colin, with an air of mild regret.

  Mild, Colin is so mild. A Chicken Korma of a man.

  What do you mean? I say, nervous that Colin is going to own up to the discomfort between us.

  I look at my watch. Tony is an hour and a half late now. About the average.

  Well, if you don’t know if they’re real or not, it’s harder to get excited. Because fake ones are… cheating. I mean, if you know they’re fake, it’s not as sexy as if they’re real. Like when I found out that that… that girl… in… what was that film… you know, with Harrison Ford and… er. The one where the girl turns out to be a robot. She’s gorgeous, but once you know she’s a, she’s a…

  Replicant.

  Replicant, that’s right. Then you think, if she’s not really a girl, how can you…

  Nodge shifts on his chair. He hasn’t looked at the photograph and is gazing out of the door into the sunlight with a hazy disdain at the use of ‘girl’ for ‘woman’.

  Woman. She’s a woman.