Authors: Alex Wheatle
Juliet sank into the sofa and stretched out her long legs under the coffee table, feeling totally captivated by her new-found younger brother, and wanting to prolong the conversation for as long as possible.
She studied Brenton in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. He fidgeted in his chair. “What do you do?” he asked. “Work? Go to college?”
“I went to college for a year, but I got bored of it. You know, I wanted to earn some decent money. Anyway, I got a job working for a bank in the City.”
“What city?”
Juliet laughed, nearly choking on her sandwich. “It’s where all the big banks and money buildings are, just over the river. Kind of opposite London Bridge. Well, that area is called the City. The centre of it is the Bank of England,”
“Oh yeah? It’s where that Bank underground station is, innit?”
Juliet smiled at her brother’s ignorance. “What do you do?”
Brenton jolted his shoulders. “Nothing. I was kicked out of school. I didn’t take no shit from the teachers. Sorry about the French, but me and teachers just don’t agree.”
“You must try to do something,” she said reprovingly. “If you can’t decide on what to do, go to college. Sometimes it’s easier for a person to do well at college, rather than at school.”
Brenton shook his head slightly as he fed himself another sandwich. “No, I’m not the type to study books and revise and so on. I’m more practical, see – good with the hands. Woodwork and t’ing.”
“Then go to college and do a course about woodwork or something practical,” Juliet interrupted. “Colleges don’t just do courses for English and Maths, you know.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. But like you, I would rather have a job and make some money. I’m sick and tired of buying my clothes in cheap shops. I wanna start to buy them up the West End, you know what I mean?”
Juliet was determined to get her point across, thinking that because of his schooling problems, Brenton should prepare himself at college before lining up for the rat race. “Apply for a grant, you should get one,” she advised. “If you do, you’ll get more money than just dole, and you’ll be learning something constructive at the same time.”
Brenton was defeated by his sister’s persistence on the issue of college. “All right, all right, I will step down to Brixton College and if I feel like it, I will check out Vauxhall College as well. I will ask what courses they’re dealing wid. Will that satisfy you?”
Juliet smiled and felt a small sense of achievement. It was as if she’d taken it upon herself to be her brother’s guru. Brenton wondered what his mother was doing upstairs. Maybe she was bawling – serve her right!
Juliet saw him staring into space; she found it hard to think of the right thing to say. “Hey, Brenton, I know it’s probably hard for you coming here and meeting me and my mother. Shit, hold up. I mean
our
mother, sorry for that.”
Brenton grinned, making Juliet think her brother did possess some humour in his make-up. She resumed, “I am not going to defend what she did or what she didn’t do, but I can say this – she did care about you, and she told me I had a little brother when I was seven. Many times she has been thinking what you were up to, especially on your birthday. It’s in March, innit?”
Brenton nodded silently. “I know she feels guilty,” Juliet went on, “and sometimes so did I, knowing I had a brother somewhere out there. But take it easy on her, Mum’s not well these days. She suffers from high blood pressure, so any stress is not good for her.”
“Hasn’t done me much good either.”
Looking pensive, Juliet paused and gazed at her younger brother, who didn’t appear convinced by what she was telling him.
The reality of it all finally hit Brenton. He wanted to pinch himself, because he could not quite believe that he was having a conversation with his sister in his own mother’s house. He had reduced his mother to tears and began to regret not bringing Mr Lewis with him.
Brenton closed his eyes for a split second and then released them, half-expecting to wake up in his hostel bed, staring at Mr Dean. But this was not to be. What would James make of it all? he asked himself. He found Juliet staring at him inquisitively. This was a stare too far for him. “Look, um, thanks for chatting to me, but I better chip now. It’s getting a bit late.”
Juliet glanced at her gold-coloured watch, noting that the time was past ten o’clock. “How you getting home?”
“Er, by decker, innit.”
Impatient now, Brenton propelled himself forward, sitting on the edge of the chair. His sister stood up and went over to the front window, where she parted the net curtains and gazed through the glass. She heard the wind whistling outside, slamming the rain onto the window. “I’ll order you a cab. It’s freezing out there.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll be all right.”
As he got up out of his chair, Juliet was showing some mild displeasure in her face, like a bewildered commuter who had thrown a busker a coin, only for the busker to get up and walk away, ignoring the gift. “Hey, I’m calling you a cab, and before you go, you can write down your address and phone number. Mum and myself would like to know where to contact you.”
Juliet stepped into the hallway to make a phone-call to a cab office, while her brother stood, hands in his pockets, wondering whether his mother would come down to bid him goodbye.
Following the phone-call, Juliet’s head poked around the front-room door. “A few minutes.”
Then she trotted upstairs, leaving Brenton staring out at the raging night, still attempting to come to terms with the evening’s events. Seconds later, Juliet sauntered back into the room, holding a five-pound note, a page of notepaper and a pen. Smiling, she placed the cash, paper and pen on the coffee table. “Write down your phone number and address on this. The fiver should cover your cab fare.”
Brenton eyed the money. “It won’t cost that much.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Brenton reluctantly picked up the bank-note and pushed it deep inside his back pocket. When he’d finished writing down his details on the piece of paper, he gave it to his sister. “You have to understand, I’m not used to people asking me for my address and phone number. The last time somebody did that, I was in a beast station.”
This last statement mopped the smile off Juliet’s face. She was about to say something, but was interrupted by a shriek from a car horn. Brenton quickly paced through the room towards the front door, his sister close behind. “Look after yourself and I’ll call soon.”
“Yeah, thanks and t’ing, and I’ll sight you later.”
Juliet watched her brother step into the waiting cab, wondering how Fate had treated his sixteen years, and how he’d been brought up. As the taxi moved away, she felt an unfamiliar anger towards her mother for being too weak-hearted when abandoning the infant Brenton. Sympathising with her brother’s plight, Juliet vowed to try and make it up to him, wanting to compensate him somehow.
In the taxi, Brenton glanced upwards, to see if his mother was there at an upstairs window, bidding him goodbye. But she was nowhere in sight. He dropped his head, staring at the mat.
As soon as Juliet closed the front door, her thoughts turned to her mother. What with her high blood pressure and meeting Brenton for the first time, the evening must have given her heart a
stern test. So she scampered upstairs and tapped gently on her mother’s door before entering.
Ms Massey’s room was attractively decorated with pink and white striped wallpaper. A matching beige double wardrobe and chest of drawers gave it a furniture catalogue appearance, while the deep red carpet was warm and cosy. Gold-framed photographs hung from the wall, many of them snapshots of the young Juliet Massey. Various school certificates and exam passes were also hung about the walls or propped up on the dressing table.
Juliet found her mother sprawled across the double bed, obviously very troubled and upset. She stood in the doorway, waiting for her mother to notice her, but Ms Massey’s head was tombed in her quilt. “Mum, Mum.”
Slowly, the distraught woman turned around, her face saturated in tears. Juliet felt a deep compassion for her mother, imagining the torment she was feeling. She sat down on the bed beside her. “You should have talked to him more, Mum. I know how you feel, but it looked bad when you went off upstairs like that.”
Swabbing her tears with one swipe of her hand, the older woman sat up to face her daughter. It had indeed been a heart-wrenching experience, setting eyes on her son after sixteen years; she hadn’t known how to cope with the situation.
“You know, I did want to hold him,” she said tearfully, “but him look so vex, so upset, I jus’ could not go near him. It mus’ be somet’ing for a woman to be ’fraid of her own son.”
Juliet gave her mother a forgiving glance as Cynthia went on, “I did want to tell him that he has been in my thinking for a long time now – since him was born – but I don’t think him would have believed me. The trut’ is, I have failed him. When he did need me, I wasn’t there. I couldn’t even look him in the eye. Him mus’ really hate me y’know, but you can’t blame the poor bwai.”
Concerned, Juliet lay down on the bed, propping her head on her right hand, looking kindly on her mother, trying to reassure her that the situation might not turn out that bad.
“Hey, listen to me,” she said gently. “He looks well, healthy enough, and we now know where he is. It’s gonna take a little time to get to know each other. Just be glad that he’s found us. Now it’s up to the two of us to show Brenton we care.”
Tears began to reappear on Cynthia’s cheeks. “When I saw him at the door, I knew it was him. I could have died from shame. But the worse t’ing was, I jus’ treated him like any udder visitor to the house. I did not be’ave like a mudder should. I jus’ stood there like a frightened John crow, staring at him.”
Both of them wondered what Boy Brown would do now he had lifted the lid of his hidden past. Mother and daughter simply sat in silence, only interrupted by Cynthia’s quiet sobbing.
Brenton arrived home, paying the cab driver two pounds fifty for the fare. He checked the front-room window of downstairs to see if Mr Lewis was working, but no light was visible. So he pushed his key inside the door, feeling a sense of belonging, like a lost lamb who has found his shepherd.
A mug of chocolate and bed seemed a good idea as Brenton was feeling as if someone had just wrung his brain. He ambled into the kitchen, only to find there were no clean mugs in the cupboard. He peered into the sink where several unwashed mugs had been abandoned. Thinking Floyd must have had spars visiting earlier, he cursed him and didn’t bother to make his late-night hot drink. He trooped wearily off to bed, hearing giggling sounds as he passed Floyd’s bedroom door. Biscuit laughs like a blasted horse, he thought.
He collapsed fully-clothed on his bed, only stopping to kick off his new trainers. Looking up at Mr Dean, Brenton admired the rebellious pose.
“Got someone else to chat to now, James,” he murmured.
“You wouldn’t believe how pretty she is. She works in a bank but she should be a model. As for the bitch of a mother I’ve got, she looks in need of a doctor.”
He stretched out a foot to kick the bedroom door shut and with his mind debating on his new-found family, he fell deeply asleep.
A
t nine o’clock in the morning, someone entered Brenton’s room and flicked on the light switch. Brenton was still half-asleep. “What is this?” he grumbled. “Jailhouse? Do I have to slop out now? Whatever happened to privacy?”
Mr Lewis, noting that his charge slept in his clothes, produced his university-taught ‘confide-in-me’ smile. “Stand by your bed, laddie. At the double!”
Brenton seemed to have weights on his eyelids that day. He raised them slowly, focused, and found a grinning Mr Lewis in his sights. Parking himself on the end of the bed, the social worker asked eagerly: “Well, what happened?”
Thinking that Arnold Lewis was a bit too keen to find out his business, Brenton took his time in answering. “Er, I saw my mother. It was weird and didn’t seem real. She didn’t say a lot and I kinda had a go at her. She reckons she’s sorry for what happened in the past. I’ll tell you one thing though, she’s got a nice bloody yard!”
Brenton paused his tale as he struggled to sit up. Lewis waited patiently, adjusting his glasses that always formed a red blotch on the bridge of his nose. “I’ve got an older sister, Juliet,” Brenton resumed. “We chatted for a while and she was kinda all right. I think she’s eighteen. Anyway, I gave her my phone number and she said she’ll bell me soon.”
“Is that it? How did your mother greet you? Did she welcome you? Was she pleased?”
“Yeah, that was about it. I had a little go at her but nothing serious.”
Mr Lewis stared at Brenton, expecting him to disclose a bit more, but the teenager just sat there, wondering if last night’s meeting ever took place, and whether his mother was thinking about him. Eventually Mr Lewis interrupted the silence. “It must have been a shock to the system for your mother to see you after so long. I’m not saying she’s the best mother in the world, but give her a bit of time. Give yourself a bit of time too to get used to the idea.”
Brenton half-glimpsed James Dean, almost expecting him to say something about the matter. Mr Lewis got to his feet. “I’m glad for you Brenton, you deserve a break. I hope this is the start of something good for you, and maybe now you will begin to value yourself.”
At that, the social worker departed the room. With any luck, now Brenton had found his family, he might just start to think about a career. The social worker’s hopes were not penny-in-well thinking, for even now Brenton was preparing himself to take a look at the local institutions of further education.
Half an hour later, Mr Lewis emerged from his room to find Brenton stepping down the stairs, ready to leave the hostel.
“Where are you off to? It’s not like you to be up and about so early.”
“Down to Vauxhall College,” Brenton replied casually, taking perverse pleasure at the social worker’s surprise.
Mr Lewis produced a self-satisfied smile, but before he could add some encouragement, Brenton disappeared through the front door.
With his hands set in his trouser pockets, he breezed towards the bus stop, feeling a new sense of purpose. Once aboard a number 36, he began to recall the lyrics of his sister Juliet the night before, and wondered if he could get a course and a grant just like that.
After a change of buses at Vauxhall BR station, he finally reached the modern-looking college on the Wandsworth Road. The college had a large paved area at the front and side of the building. Brenton decided to nose around the perimeter of it before entering the main entrance. He then set course for the reception area, walking past two smartly dressed white guys whose eyes betrayed their suspicion. A middle-aged woman, perched on a stool, was busily typing a letter, which provoked reminders for Brenton of Borough police station.
He approached the counter and waited patiently for her to notice him. “’Scuse me, I wonder if you could help me out? I wanna go on a carpentry course.”
The receptionist swivelled round and arose from her stool. “I’m afraid that our carpentry and joinery courses don’t start until September. These courses lead to a City and Guilds examination. Are you an apprentice for a building firm or local council?”
“No.”
“Most of the building-trade students are sent on the college courses by their employers. Usually they are day release, and the fees are met by their employers as well.”
Not quite understanding what the lady said, Brenton studied the many leaflets on display. “Oh, right. Uh, what about a grant?”
Bending down slightly, the woman collected a couple of leaflets off the table. “This is a form for students requiring a grant, and the other one tells you about the range of craft courses we do here. But do try and join a building firm who will offer an apprenticeship.”
Brenton grabbed the information and thanked the receptionist, then paced towards the exit door. He scanned his surroundings and whispered to himself, “Fuck my days - me at
college
?
”
Once outside the building, he chose to walk through the gaps in the high-rise tower blocks, taking the shortest route to Stockwell. He wondered how he would feel living at the top of one of these concrete-boxed homes of squalor. Perhaps at night he would peer
out the window after smoking a mellow spliff, and invite the high yellow moon out to play.
When Brenton reached Brixton, he sauntered along Atlantic Road, where he came across a small assembly of people watching someone skanking in the street. Brenton took a closer look and found the object of attention was a white dreadlocked man. Dressed up in crude attire, he skanked with no rhythm at all to the thumping bass of a market record stall. Why do all these man who have gone cuckoo, come to Brixton and skank in the street? Brenton questioned himself.
Just as he was about to move on, he heard his name being called. “Brown! Brown!”
He spun round to see the grinning dial of his spar Biscuit, who was wearing a leather cap with the peak nearly covering his eyes. “Say wha’ppen Brown, long time no see. Where’s that
joker-smoking
Floyd?” asked Biscuit, while performing an extravagant strut that would have put a peacock to shame.
“He’s probably in his bed.”
“What are you gonna do about Flynn?”
Brenton’s eyebrows angled. “I will deal with him in my own time. So what are you selling now?”
Biscuit neighed, a horrible-sounding laugh that was more nose than mouth. “Well, everyt’ing. You know me. Floyd was interested in a crucial camera I showed him last night, but he hasn’t checked me today so I don’t know what he’s dealing wid. More time, if you’re interested, it’s a bad camera - A-1 class, I’m telling you. I saw the Queen the other day in a magazine and she was posing with a camera just like the one I’m selling. Nah man, it’s a serious camera. I’ve also got a chops and some crocodile boot to sell, but that’s seriously out of your budget range.”
The brethrens started to walk towards Coldharbour Lane. “I ain’t got the corn to buy a friggin camera. What am I gonna take pictures of - the yards on Coldharbour Lane?”
“All right then, maybe it’s not within your budget. I can
understand that, nuff man in a hard-time style and living on ghetto menu of dry bread and polo mint. But you have to listen to your music‚ seen? I’ve also got this wicked Brixton suitcase, brand spanking, crisp biscuit and officially new. Japanese and t’ing. I weren’t gonna sell it ’cos it sounds so sweet, nuff bass-line. But you and Floyd are my spars so I’ll be open to a serious negotiation. It’s got a whole ’eap of gadgets, and you wanna see the size of the instruction book. It’s t’ick, man. You can only get this suitcase up the West End in dem royal appointment shops, and Brenton, as you’re a brethren, I sell the goods to you for sixty notes, nutten less and nutten more. And if you offer me somet’ing less, me an’ you ain’t no brethren. And believe me, man, nuff man will get red eye when you carry the tape recorder in the park and just let off the bass-line. I was gonna ask man an’ man for eighty sheets. But as you’re a brethren, I give you twenty pound squeeze.”
Brenton couldn’t help but smile at the hard sell. “Biscuit, man, what the fuck is wrong with you? I can just about scrape up the corn to buy myself a patty. Me and Floyd had to do some serious butt building at Christmas. You’re chatting to the wrong man. I mean, you crack me up. Why don’t you ask them soundman if they will buy the t’ing? They start taping dances now, innit?”
The duo ambled into a West Indian bread shop and came out with two meat-filled patties, wrapped in serviettes. As they walked and talked, Biscuit’s eyes were magneted to a fit gal sporting tight jeans. His mind tremored on wondering how she managed to squeeze her solid, vibrating batty inside the denims. “Hey, Brenton, check the legback on that steak over der so.”
Brenton was more interested in the hot patty.
The sight of the well-honed steak spouted out any thoughts in Biscuit’s mind to make a sell. He changed the subject.
“So where you raving this weekend, Brenton?”
“I dunno. There’s a big dance up Norwood Hall where Shaka is playing, I know nuff man will go to that. But like I said, my budget
is low, so I might just coch at my yard with a big head of herb and feel merry. So where are you raving. Biscuit?”
“We’re gonna check out Cubies, up Dalston Junction. Nuff steaks go der, and any man in there is guaranteed a crub if he ain’t too ugly an’ if he gets his head trim. Finnley did check some piece of beef up dem sides two weeks ago. He reckons he’s boning it regular now. Yeah man, it’s about time I was dealing with them fit steaks from north side, you know what I mean?”
Brenton nodded, thinking Biscuit’s idea of heaven was an inch away from a fit gal’s rocking batty.
The brethrens stood on Coldharbour Lane, both clocking a beastman questioning a dread. “Look, Biscuit, I sight you later and I’ll tell Floyd about the camera, but I don’t know where he will get the corn from. I have to dally now, so laters.”
“Yeah, more time Brenton, man.”
The couple proceeded on their separate ways. Brenton trundled towards home, while Biscuit strutted to the
high-decibelled
record shop - maybe he could hatch a deal in there. Brenton pondered on whether he should check out Brixton College, but he felt too lazy and quickened his pace home.
As Brenton turned his front-door key he was confronted by a wall of cussing in the shape of Floyd and Sharon in the hallway. “She’s just a friend, man. I did know her from school, she used to go out with my spar.”
Brenton dodged around the quarrelling couple as Sharon insisted, “You too lie. Friends don’t climb over each other at a party all night.”
“I only danced with her for two records,” Floyd argued.
Brenton opted to park halfway up the stairs to ear the amusing argument. Meanwhile, Sharon was pointing her fore-digit right in Floyd’s face, nearly jabbing him in the eye. “What do you mean, two dances? My friend told me you danced with the blue-foot all friggin night.”
Glancing up at Brenton and desperately seeking back-up in his
tiff, Floyd pleaded, “Hey Brown, tell Sharon Sylvia is just an old school friend and I’m not dealing wid her.”
The warring couple looked on Brenton at the same time. Brenton loathed being caught in the middle of one of Floyd’s gal tiffs, but he felt obliged to support his hostel-mate, “No, well, I haven’t seen Sylvia round here anyway.”
Brenton was lying through his teeth and Sharon appeared far from convinced, fixing hot accusing eyes on her man. “There’s still no excuse for you to rub her down like you’re trying to start a fire with her dress and your briefs. Carol did sight you, Floyd, she didder. She told me that you and that leggobeast were so tight, you had a print of her knickers on your Farah’s.”
“You know how Carol exaggerates.”
“Well, if me hear that you’re palavering with any gal again, I will sack you so quick, you won’t have time to think of some trickster explanation.”
“She did rush me, innit. I didn’t want to shame her in front of her spars if I said no to a dance.”
“Lie you a tell.”
“Sticksman honour. She did rush me.”
Sharon kissed her teeth.
Finding it hard to keep a straight face, Brenton stood up and made his way up to his room, assured that Floyd would chirp his way out of his ‘caught black-handed’ situation.
Later on in the evening, at six-thirty, Juliet arrived home from a trying day at work. The crowded trains and buses made her feel agitated - especially as she found herself in the smokers’ carriage, standing all the way home.
In the morning, she had felt the need to repel the advances of a white male work colleague. This guy wondered what it would be like to sleep with a black girl. Juliet told him that if he was all the male sex could offer, she would gladly turn gay.
Juliet remembered that she’d promised to bell her new-found
brother, but she needed to rest up and grab a bite to eat first. She walked along the hallway. “Mum! Mum!”
Trudging into the kitchen, she hoped to find steaming pots of welcoming food, but all she saw was a spotless kitchen, with all the pots and pans hanging in their places from wooden pegs on the wall. Giving a sigh of frustration, she sighted a note on the kitchen table:
Sorry
,
no
time
to
cook
,
had
to
go
out.
She didn’t fancy the notion of braving the weather again to buy a takeaway meal, so she switched the electric kettle on and satisfied her hunger with a mug of tea and a two-storey cheese sandwich. With mug and plate in her hands, she went back through the hallway where she noticed another scribbled message, by the phone this time:
Phone
Garnet
when
you
reach
home
.
Juliet smiled to herself as she placed her mug and plateful of sandwiches on the bottom stair, then dialled Garnet’s number. “Hello, could I speak to Garnet, please?”
She heard the phone being dumped down as a young voice shouted, “Garnet, phone for you!”
Silence for a few seconds, then the clattering sound of somebody picking up the phone.