Rebuilding Coventry (4 page)

But I’ve
always had a horror of being taken for a tart. Perhaps I went too far the other
way: I have often been mistaken for a teacher in my plaid skirts, twin sets and
flat shoes. I am a very methodical woman, which is why I keep a set of old
clothes for when I sweep the chimney, once a year. These clothes were certainly
not intended to be worn in London. I was wearing one of Derek’s old Tortoise Society
sweatshirts, which was screen-printed with a picture of a smiling tortoise, a
pair of pale blue polyester bell-bottom trousers and black plimsolls. I was
covered in soot. My fingernails were black half moons. If I had seen myself
coming I would have crossed the road to avoid me. I wanted to turn myself
inside out, like a reversible jumper I once had. I was painfully cold. Icy
draughts blew up the sleeves and down the neck of my baggy sweatshirt and
played around my chest and back. I moaned with each gust of wind and there was
no reaching for a warm sweater, no coat hanging on the back of the door, no
fire to crouch in front of when I got home. I had no home.

I hope
you’ll believe that normally I am a fastidiously clean woman. I bathe every
day, which is considered eccentric behaviour amongst my friends and relations.
Ordinarily I would never leave the house without first cleaning my fingernails
and making sure that my anorak hood was straight. So my instinct now was to
keep my filthy self hidden away in the dark. But darkness is cold, so once
again I was pulled towards the illusion of warmth given by the lights of King’s
Cross Station.

The
three women were still sitting on the floor. They were now singing a maudlin
Irish song, something about a lovelorn butcher boy who hanged himself on his
wedding day. I would have liked to join them and ask if they’d got a spare coat
I could borrow; but I knew that their singing would soon attract the attention
of the authorities. In the city where I lived I have often seen buskers bullied
away from shop doorways by policemen; once, even, a violinist playing Mozart,
the height of musical respectability. So I kept away from the group and walked
around the station looking for dropped coins.

Envy is
a destructive emotion but I envied everyone I saw that night. I envied them
their coats, sweaters, shoes, boots, handbags, money, chips, cups of tea, clean
skin and clear consciences. I envied them the beds they would sleep in, the
front doors they would open, the cigarettes they would smoke. I’ve never had
time for people such as my husband, who constantly indulge themselves in
self-pity. But I have to confess that, as I stood and watched the people
purposefully walking about the station, I felt very sorry for myself indeed.

It was
now eleven o’clock. Drunks in dinner jackets joined the queues for the trains.
A pretty girl met a pretty man off a train from Scotland. They said ‘I love you’
to each other. The girl was more enthusiastic than the man. An old woman with a
shaking disease pulled a too-heavy suitcase towards the taxi rank. A skinhead
with a spider tattooed on his neck ran athletically for a train and caught it,
leaving shock waves of public alarm behind him. ‘Only muggers run, ‘said a man
to his wife.

The
automatic doors opened and a pair of policemen walked through. I stood behind a
pillar and watched them stop the song about the suicidal Irish butcher. The
three chaotic women stood up unsteadily and fussed over their slithering
mountain of plastic bags. Eventually they moved on and out into the wet night.
The policemen watched them go, then they strolled around the station, looking
for minor infringements of the law.

I, who
had infringed the law in the most major way possible, moved around the station
to avoid them. Blue lights flashed outside and more policemen poured through
the entrances. Some of them were trying to control wild-eyed Alsatian dogs
which were straining on short choke chains. They looked as though they hated
humanity and constantly lurched towards innocent passers-by, barking. One dog,
called Baskerville by his handler, was in such a frenzy that it had to be
choked into silence, watched, at a distance, by censorious British animal
lovers. There was an announcement on the loudspeakers:

‘The
nine-thirty football special from Leeds has now arrived. Members of the public
are asked to keep clear and assist the police in their duties. British Rail
apologizes to members of the
bona fide
public for any inconvenience they
may suffer as a result of football fans passing through this station.’

Hidden
behind a pile of luggage I could see the train as it pulled in with its cargo
of young men. They were waving red and white scarves out of the carriage
windows. They were singing, “Ere we go, ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go.’ The sound
crackled around the station. There was enough electric power in their combined
voices to run a fleet of milk floats. As the train stopped, the policemen ran
and stood two to each carriage door. The Alsatians seemed not to like the
colours red and white; they leapt at the open carriage windows, as if their
teeth were aching for football supporters’ flesh. Baskerville was head-butting
the carriage in frustrated frenzy. All down the train, carriage windows were
slammed shut. The singing stopped. The dogs were out of control. The
bona
fide
public corralled themselves into corners of the station, away from the
dog handlers who strained and shouted, ‘Sit! Sit!’ and choked the dogs into
uneasy submission. Baskerville was the last to quieten down; his eyes were
rolling around in his crazy head. He yipped and yapped and scooted his powerful
haunches along the platform towards the train. He
was
sitting, but only
just.

A
police inspector ordered the carriage doors to be opened. Then he spoke through
a mechanized loud hailer to the young men. ‘Once on the platform you must line
up in fours, and wait until everyone is off the train. You will then be
escorted from the station to the Underground. Anyone trying to leave the
station unescorted will be arrested and charged with …’ The inspector broke
off, a note of uncertainty had crept into his voice.

A
foolhardy youth wearing a primrose-coloured sweater shouted, ‘Charged wiv what
…
?’
Baskerville was brought through the crowd to answer the youth’s
question. When everyone was assembled on the platform and the train had been
checked for damage, the youths, dogs and policemen began their sullen
procession.

A youth
said, ‘I don’t wanna go on the Underground. I only live round the corner.’ A
policeman pushed him back into the ranks.

Where
have I seen a similar sight? I think hard and remember. It was
All Our
Yesterdays
on television. People from the ghetto were being rounded up and
taken somewhere. A policeman is looking at me from across the concourse. I
blush under my soot, look at my nonexistent watch, remember an appointment and
walk out of the station and back into London.

Outside
there is a little hut full of newspapers and pornographic magazines. I look at
the headlines: ‘HOMELESS — NEW SHOCK’. I riffle quickly through the pages. Nothing
about me murdering a man earlier in the day. The newspaper seller says, ‘If you
ain’t buyin’ get your dirty hands off that paper.’ I say I am sorry and cross
the road with a crowd of other people, grateful for the accidental shelter of
their umbrellas. The rain is dark and spiky; within a few minutes I am
saturated. Bubbles froth along the rubber edging of my plimsolls. There is no
point in trying to avoid the puddles, so I walk through them. I don’t know what
to do with my hands. There they are, jiggling away at my sides, carrying
nothing, holding nothing, pushing nothing. I try crossing my arms but it feels
wrong, all right for standing at my back door and taking the night air, but out
of place in London in the rain after midnight. Hands on hips? … No …
too suggestive. Hands behind back? … Ludicrous … looks like I’m being
satirical about the Royal Family. So I let them hang down and after a while I
forget them and am comfortable. This is how men walk.

A sign
tells me that I’m in the London Borough of Camden, a place I’ve never heard of.
I look around and on the opposite side of the road I see a storybook castle with
turrets and spires and many-arched windows. Is it Westminster Abbey? Is the
River Thames around the next corner? Then I see a sign on the beautiful
building says: ‘St Pancras Station’ and I feel foolish. Is Buckingham Palace
nearby? Where is Piccadilly Circus? I think about my children. How will they
cope when they find out their mother is a murderess? I want an anorak, a
cigarette, a cup of tea, an umbrella, a bar of soap and a chair. I walk on. The
buildings are swirling over my head. I cannot encompass them; they are too
many, they are too high. They are built of yellow, dirty brick, when I am used
to red brick. They are not friendly buildings, they are too important:
headquarters and official residences, and further on shops with impossible,
unthinkable prices.

I am
frightened of London, I want to go home. My feet are numb, I don’t know where
to go, or which street to turn down. I want to rewind my life on a video
machine and wake up yesterday morning. I can’t cry; my heart is frozen inside
me. There is no question of giving myself up to the police. What I have done is
wicked and I shall be punished; but I shall punish myself.. There is no need
for the law to intervene in what is now a private matter.

4
Excitement in Badger’s Copse Close

Greta was standing at the
stove, stirring tinned rice pudding, when Maureen crashed through the kitchen
door; coming from darkness into sudden fluorescent light.

‘Coventry
has killed Gerald Fox!’

‘Coventry?’

‘Yes!’

‘Killed?’

‘Yes!’

‘Gerald
Fox?’

‘YES!’

‘Coventry
has killed Gerald Fox?’

‘YES!’

An
explosion of enjoyment filled the kitchen. The two women, trembling and
shocked, but also excited and happy, began to talk. Coventry’s life was
examined for previous displays of aggression. Greta remembered the time that Coventry
had spoken to her sharply once.

Greta
had remarked that Derek didn’t deserve Coventry who, in Greta’s opinion, was
younger, better-looking, nicer and far more interesting and intelligent than
Derek.

Coventry
had replied, very irritably, that Derek had married her when she was an
ignorant teenager who was in and out of work, living in her parents’ house and
having to obey her parents’ rules. Derek, however, was twenty-six, well
established, in a job with prospects and already had his name on the council
house waiting list.

To
this, Greta said, ‘Big deal!’ Coventry had run out of Greta’s house and slammed
the front door. Disappointing, in that it lacked drama perhaps, but worth two
minutes in the telling. The two women felt important and were conscious of
their high status in these dramatic events; after all, they were Coventry’s
best friends.

They
moved into the living-room and watched as official vehicles came to a halt
outside the Foxes’ house. Greta did a count: three ambulances; five police
cars; one white police van; a fire engine (had Coventry turned to arson as
well?); three plain cars carrying six plain men; and a rocky little Citroën
containing one gaudily dressed social worker. The street had seen nothing like
it since a wedding reception had turned nasty and temporarily stopped the
traffic while the men of both families slogged it out. Greta and Maureen went
outside and joined the throng of neighbours standing behind the plastic ribbon
of the police barricade. Every now and again all the heads turned to look at
the Dakins’s house, where the murderess’s husband was expected home from work.

5
I Meet Mr Periwinkle

It is two o’clock in the
morning. I am sitting outside the London Foot Hospital in a place called
Fitzroy Square. I can’t walk another step, but the rain has stopped and my
clothes have dried on me. I am grateful for such small mercies. To my delight I
found three strong elastic bands inside the doorway. One I used to fasten my
damp hair into a pony-tail, the other two I used to wrap around the superfluous
folds of flapping cloth at my ankles. Bell-bottoms were the ultimate extreme of
flares. I have only worn them once outside the house before and then a high
wind blew up and billowed the surplus cloth. From the knees down I looked like
a galleon in full sail. Derek was pleased when they were relegated to
chimney-sweeping wear. He hates unconventional clothing. It unsettles him.

Before
I went to sleep I wiped my hands and face with wet leaves from the square. I
was desperate to get rid of the soot. Two nurses swaddled in warm cloaks passed
me. They looked on curiously as I scrunched the leaves over my face. As they
walked past me I heard one say,
‘I
like the smell of autumn leaves as
much as anybody, but sticking them up your nose is going too far.’ The other
said, ‘That reminds me, I’m starting my psychiatric training next month.’

The wet
leaves made no impression on the soot. Looking in a lamplit puddle I saw a
dusky face staring back at me. I was reminded of the Black and White Minstrels,
their horrible winking and grimacing and strutting around with canes and top
hats. They were a firm favourite of Derek’s. He wrote to the BBC when the show
was taken off. I remember one phrase in his letter, ‘Clean family
entertainment.’ He signed himself: ‘Derek A. Dakin’.