by Claire Peate
Robert nudged me in the ribs. “Edda!”
“What?” I looked up and Robert was pointing to further down the road just beyond Eustace’s house. “Oh! Guy!”
Guy was standing on the pavement at the entrance to the track leading to his mews house. He was taking in the sight of the police signs and the police cars and police tape. And then he looked up and saw me. His face fell – even from this distance I could exactly make out his expression: ‘YOU!’
I laughed when I saw his reaction.
“Tell me what it meant,” Robert slunk an arm around me as Guy looked on. “Tell me why you had Tyrone spray that enormous stencil of Che Guevara up on the wall of Guy’s house.”
“Well, Guy noticed once that I wore that t-shirt with the picture of Che Guevara on and he imagined I was some sort of follower of the man. He used to call me his militant Edda, and say that I was a dispossessed Highlander or some such nonsense. So I got Tyrone to spray up that enormous image of Che Guevara and have I AM DA NOTORIOUS BARON written across it.”
“So he’ll definitely know it’s you doing the graffiti?”
“I should think so.” I was watching him, staring at Robert and me from down the road. “He said that he really rated Da Baron, and that the graffiti showed real artistic merit. So I wonder how he’s feeling now that he knows that it was me who was at least partly responsible for it.”
“I don’t know about you,” Robert said, “but I could really do with a drink.”
“Gin?”
“No! Not gin. Never again in my life. I was thinking more along the lines of a beer.”
“Well we can’t go to the bar at the bistro or to V-2 café,” I said. “How about the Barge?”
“Perfect.” He slid his arm around me and, without a backward glance at Guy I walked with Robert back to the pub.
“I like your Big Plan,” I said. “Do you think it will have worked?”
“Definitely. The police are bound to investigate what’s behind the businesses aren’t they.”
“And you really don’t think that Tyrone is going to get caught?”
“No. And anyway, he’s doing the police a service isn’t he? He’s a copper’s nark: even if they do work out who Da Notorious Baron is and catch him then they’ll only want to know how he came by the information. He’s working for the police on this one.”
“We’re working for the police,” I said. “Anyway, if he’s Da Notorious Baron and I’m Da Notorious Sidekick, what are you?”
“Da Notorious Planmeister,” he said after a moment’s thought.
We were on Geoffrey Road again and heading towards Brockley Cross.
“Beth’s on her way,” I said.
“Shall I get hold of dad and Amanda and ask if they can make it?” he asked. “We could properly celebrate the reclaiming of SE4. What do you think?”
“Definitely,” I said as we walked past my house and on to the pub.
“All right there, me darlin’s! Lovely day, ain’t it, eh?”
Epilogue
[Extract from the Guardian Weekend Supplement]
THE JOY OF SE4 – Cleaned up in more ways than one
An elegant suburb on the doorstep of Central London, affordable properties and just a whiff of scandal makes SE4 well worth investigating writes Derek Offshore.
I start my visit to Brockley in the V-2 café near the station. On its walls are framed black and white photographs of devastation – a not-so-gentle reminder to those enjoying the freshly baked muffins and fine coffees that this part of South London suffered the infamous V-2 rocket attacks during the Second World War. “The old bomb sites are where you see the 1970s low-rise tower blocks,” the owner of the café, Edda Mackenzie, tells me.
But it’s not the tower blocks that are the pull to this area of South London: it’s the stuff in between. The elegant early Victorian villas, the bijou coach houses and the sweeps of terraces almost all of which fall within a conservation area – put in place to stop more devastation in the eighties, this time not by the Germans but the town planners. “It’s the most exciting place to be in London,” says Nigel Green, the sharp-suited owner of the new agency Brockley Estates that has opened up at Brockley Cross. “They say if there’s a Starbucks in an area then you’ve already missed the boat in finding a gentrified area – house prices will already be high. I can tell you there isn’t a Starbucks in Brockley yet, but a planning application has been granted for one in the south of the area, near Hilly Fields.”
Nigel’s words Brockley and planning permission were perhaps also a sly nod to the owner of a former local estate agency: Fox Estates. Fox hit the headlines nearly a year ago for operating a network designed to ‘cleanse’ Brockley of its South London roots, which the owner – one Eustace Fox – found personally distasteful.
“It’s all in the past,” Nigel Green is keen to tell me. “New businesses, legitimate businesses, have started up in the premises of the old businesses. What Eustace Fox started has taken off, but this time with more of a community spirit and everyone included. Brockley plays by the rules these days. It’s a party and everyone’s invited.”
Edda from V-2 Café is less sure. “Brockley’s never going to be totally straight, in the way that Greenwich or Blackheath are straight.” To illustrate her point she gestures out of the window down towards Foxberry Avenue. In the last week a giant skip has been guerrilla gardened: painted a pillar box red and covered in turf the Skip Garden is dominated by a silver table and chairs which had been stolen from outside her café. “I don’t mind.” Edda tells me. “It’s art. It’s beautiful and it was created by a real artist.”
I ask her who the artist is but she just shrugs and says nothing. There are still some secrets hanging around in SE4. On the subject of art, the now famous graffiti artist Da Notorious Baron hails from Brockley and was responsible for exposing Eustace Fox’s fraudulent activities via street art, some of which has been preserved by a surprisingly open-minded Lewisham Council. “It’s a positive contribution to the look and feel of the area,” Greg Watson, the recently appointed Head of Planning at Lewisham Council informs me. “We have our own Banksy right here, fronting what is a burgeoning art scene.” Da Notorious Baron had his own art exhibition at Lewisham Town Hall in February of this year – made even more public when fellow graffiti artist Banksy contributed to two of the pieces in his own signature style and spurred the infamous graffiti-off that stretched through London.
So, Brockley is on the up: it has the houses, it has the art scene, and it has an edge that the pipe-and-slippers neighbourhoods of Greenwich and Blackheath can only dream of.
Before I leave Brockley I pay the guerrilla gardened Skip Garden a visit. There’s an empty bottle of Cava glued onto the table and two empty wine glasses stuck beside it. A toast to Brockley’s future, perhaps…
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More from Claire Peate
Claire peate was born in Derby a
nd lives in Cardiff with her husband and two children. She studied English Language & Linguistics at Sheffield University, and now works as an associate director in the market research industry. She has been a speaker at several festivals, including the Guardian Hay Festival.
Praise for Claire Peate
“More substance than your average chick lit”
Big Issue
“The suspense and humour will keep you gripped”
Western Mail
“Very well written, wry and funny” dovegreyreader.co.uk
“A light-hearted and fun read”
The Bookbag
“...will keep you turning the pages”
South Wales Evening Post
“Claire Peate writes with wit, affectionate humour and insight”
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Headhunters by Claire Peate
9781906784027
£7.99
A ‘girl’s own’ adventure for grown-ups
Winchester’s not the most happening of cathedral cities, but journalist Kate might find something juicy to dig up on the newly appointed Dean, Archie Cartwright. He’s not so much socks and sandals as Converse All-Stars and Italian sports cars. A thief has just lifted the head of Canute out from under Archie’s nose, his eye being caught by a rather tempting lady cleric.
Up in London, Edgar Thompson is having a hard time keeping a lid on the biggest archaeological find in British history – currently being exposed beneath Kings Cross’ busiest platforms. Especially when the most important artefact of all – another famous ancient’s skull – disappears overnight.
Where are the heads going? Will Kate, Archie and Edgar manage to find them before their own careers do a similar disappearing act? Not if Archie’s Bishop, Kate’s conniving colleagues and Edgar’s over anxious father have anything to do with it...
Big Cats and Kitten Heels by Claire Peate
9781870206884
£6.99
Rachel’s staring a Dull Life Crisis in the face... With a lifestyle that owes more to TV Quick than Tatler or Wanderlust, it’s time to get up off the sofa and out into the wide open spaces before she loses any more of her best mates to the bony-bottomed, manipulative, but ‘marvellous’, Marcia and her dazzlingly awful zest for life.
Luckily, the very next weekend offers her best chance of excitement in months: she’s booked on a hen weekend in the Brecon Beacons packed with horse-riding, hiking and lots, lots more.
And what with sheep torn in two, perma-tanned South African big game hunters and a devastatingly attractive Welsh farmer in waxed jacket and wellies, it turns out to be a much bigger adventure than even marvellous Marcia could have wished for.
The Floristry Commission by Claire Peate
9781870206747
£6.99
There are some things in life you’ll never forget – or forgive – that mean flinging your plum suede kitten heels into a bag and leaving without a backward glance...and most of your wardrobe.
For Rosamund it was the sight of her erstwhile boyfriend making love to her swine of a sister in front of the fridge. She’s nowhere to go but the Welsh Marches and her old schoolfriend Gloria – after all, she could hardly run home to Mum.
But if Roz thought the City was full of intrigue and betrayal, it’s got nothing on Kings Newton. Before she knows it, she’s up to her eyes in trouble with the testily pre-nuptial Gloria, planning floral subterfuge with a camp and gossipy colleague, and covering for all and sundry in a desperate attempt to survive the battle between the swoon-inducing lord of the manor and his unruly townsfolk.
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© Claire Peate, 2011
The right of Claire Peate to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The author would like to stress that this is a work of fiction and no resemblance to any actual individual or institution is intended or implied.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the publishers.
Published with the financial support of the Welsh Books Council.
ISBN: 978-1-906784-61-4
Cover design: G Preston
Cover photograph: © Getty Images