Charlie had been born in Islington. Born before the speed bumps and the baby prams, the bankers and the bourgeois moved in. His grandmother had bought their terraced house – now worth over a million – for £30 and a scrawled signature on parchment. ‘Love’ and ‘darlin’ peppered his speech as much as positive inflections when on the phone and obscenities when transmitting ruthlessly over crackling radio waves.
He had been proclaimed the king of the London minicab: the ringleader. Organising, franchising and operating from his bastion on Cloudesley. The occasional escape to the dusty sands of southern Spain, where his brother-in-law (one of the uncounted but over-numbered English populating its once Cockney-free shores) owns a residence, helps break the damp winters and soggy summers; although not mentally far from home.
North One’s brigade of drivers hailed from the far-flung, ex-outposts of Empire: Peter from Jamaica (never to be seen without his soft-knit, green, yellow and red cap despite the cliché of it), Phoenix from Ghana, rechristened to hasten his rise from the ashes – although admittedly Catholic by youthful enticement in the form of colourful, foil-wrapped cavity pleasers – and Sandip, a god-fearing, if not altogether misplaced Bengali, along with the recently uprooted looking for a new life on English soil.
On this particular evening, it is Sandip’s lilted English echoing forth from the phone system’s tinny sounding speakers.
‘Sandi, darlin’, I’ve already told you. 10 Malvern Terrace. Down Thornhill, across from the Albion. North of the park…yes, the pub…yes, I know you don’t give directions based on pub coordinates.’
The thought that Sandip had been in this country ten plus years and still hadn’t set foot in one, or ANY, of England’s staple establishments, aside from the Buckingham Palace, struck Charlie as odd. It occurred to him that the reverse would be tantamount to never getting a curry in a local curry house on the other side of Kathmandu or Calcutta, or whichever small corner of the world Sandip was from.
In fact, Sandip Achariya Rama Dutta was one of a brood of seven, having landed on this green isle by way of the sixth who had, had the fortune to procure passage from one of the world’s most densely populated regions on earth to one of its wettest modern kingdoms.
The exchange over radio waves continues.
‘Listen, if I have to give you the directions a third time, you’re not going to like where I’m going to tell you to go and, it’s definitely not in Islington.’
It was too much for the beginning of his night shift. If there was one thing that Savlon couldn’t fix for Charlie, it was miscommunication over the night-waves.
Saturday nights were the worst for this. There would be drunken passengers, potential vomit and occasional violence, not to mention incomplete cab fares. Of course, if the drivers couldn’t get their customers to pay, it was hardly his job to cover their losses. Still, he didn’t like it to happen as his motley crew had been with him a long time and depended on the difference between a tenner and noner. This, along with the sheer volume of calls, is what brought him back to base every weekend. They needed a figurehead. A man at the helm to steer them clearly through the night. At least, that’s what he reasoned when his missus complained about their lost weekend double bill at the local cinema – a megaplex of robust concrete and more acne per square metre than a secondary school classroom – her weekly treat after thirty-odd years married to a warm, if proverbially round, husband.
The truth was, Charlie loved his job. It was his community; and through it, he occasionally got a glimpse of other lives. Like most things for Charlie, it was a case of ‘bricks and mortar’, the exterior reflecting the interior. This was true for people as much as for buildings, and never more so than with Celeste.
***
Charlie had met Celeste through a peculiar set of circumstances that had at first bewildered, and then endeared her to him. She was a chatty twenty-something fresh out of art school, with an unfortunate ‘gullible’ gene that was charming, though lamentable. This trusting nature was what had gotten her stranded near the Hackney Downs without cab fare or wallet in the early hours of a cold, January morning, nearly a year ago.
Somehow she had met a group of overly styled hipsters after her shift at a bar in Shoreditch and decided to follow them on to an after party further east. She’d been recently dumped and was flattered by the invitation but wound up with only her phone, a headache and a calling card with the number for North One minicabs in her pocket.
Charlie had arrived to find a forlorn, poorly clothed redhead sitting on a curb without a penny to her name. Although it wasn’t his habit, when she told him where she was going (a street away from his own), he felt it would be cruel to leave her there as it was to be his last pickup before heading home. During the ride, she slurred her way through the story and her heartbreak and, by the time he dropped her off, she had promised to pay him back tenfold. The surprising thing for Charlie was that over the next few months she had, in many small and unexpected ways.
There was the large ‘THANK YOU’ spelled out in apples outside of his house one Monday morning. The handpainted, if slightly wonky, birdhouse installed on the tree in front of his door – a response to his admission of a fondness for Birds of Great Britain, an old illustrated tome left to him by his city born but country-souled father. A basket of fresh veg from the Farmers’ Market one sunny Sunday and handpicked wildflowers woven into a garland for his daughter on the first of May.
Yes, Celeste was an anomaly for the area.
When foreigners went west of Upper Street, they tended to be Aussie or Kiwi or, occasionally, from south of the river. West of the Gulf Stream was rare, and south of El Paso, rarer, which seemed to suit her just fine.
Celeste was the kind of girl that lit up a room. The kind of girl that wore heavy-set plastic frames to counter her suggestive pout and shuttled along cycle paths (hair blowing wildly) with a grin and a short skirt. She was never to be seen without her signature carmine lips – her one submission to Chanel’s range of black capped, overpriced beauty items – or her favourite eBay purchase, a 1987 Raleigh Wayfarer, affectionately named Rust. When not seen along Islington’s miles of cycle lanes or in one of Charlie’s cabs, she could be found at some of N1’s quirkier addresses:
Number 7 Barnsbury Road, site of Hurley Healing – Reiki Healing and Consultation; Complementary Therapy; Mind, Body, Spirit. All Donations welcome.
S. Cohen Costumier and Furrier, Chapel Market – where she could often be seen staring through the shopfront window at countless gaping, taxidermied faces: mongeese, foxes, ferrets and an owl, blue and white china and second hand paperbacks. Amongst the notable classics on the top shelves (Jane Austen’s Emma, Mansfield Park etc.), and the tat on the lower (Come Into My Parlour by an unremembered Wheatley), she tended to take from the middle; and her last trip saw her cycle rack strapped with When Stars Collide and Gemini Contenders.
Tonight, though, while Charlie is reflecting on their unexpected friendship, she is at the Albion, and she is in love.
***
We zoom into one of the front sash windows of a favourite local. Celeste sits in a repurposed, mahogany church pew, her fiery red curls falling in soft rings around her face. She giggles as she looks up at Bjorn.
‘So, are you going to?’
‘Going to what?’
‘Ask me to have your babies,’ Celeste half-joked.
She always did this. A rhetorical question; delivered poe-faced but with laughing eyes.
‘Well, isn’t the answer obvious?’ Bjorn couldn’t help but smile.
At this precise moment Jupiter transitions into Pisces and Celeste’s phone rings. As she steps out of the Albion to take the call she sees the white leather seat of her bicycle disappear around the corner of Richmond Avenue. Bjorn, whose gaze has followed her out and refocused through the window, sees the departure of three sweatpant-clad youths and the mint-coloured push bike.
Now, Celeste’s first reaction is to take off after them, which sh
e does, but, after 100 metres and flimsy ballet flats she collapses, unwilling to see her Rust nicked for scrap metal.
Bjorn finally catches up to her and reaches for a curl on her neck.
‘We should call 999.’
But her second reaction is to call Charlie.
***
Back on Cloudesley, the name ‘Red’ pops up on Charlie’s screen, an affectionate nickname for his offbeat neighbour. When Charlie sees Celeste calling he smiles and wonders where he’ll be sending her off to this evening. But when he picks up he hears her hysterical on the other end.
‘Calm down, darlin’. What’s goin’ on?’
‘They…these kids stole my bike!’
‘Where, my love?’
‘Just off Richmond…do you have anyone around who could take me to follow them?’
Before she’d had a chance to utter the last ‘em’, the radio in Charlie’s office crackled.
‘Just arrived at Malvern. Awaiting pickup.’
Sandip had finally arrived and, as luck would have it, would be her chariot for tonight.
‘Oh, Charlie…Can I go with Sandip?’ He’s just around the corner.’
Celeste knew most of the fleet by name as they’d often helped her catch a train, pick up odd bits for her installations or made sure she made it home after late nights at Marathon Bar, the inevitable end to concerts over in Camden.
‘Well, I don’t know darlin’,’ stammered Charlie. ‘It’s just that…’
It wasn’t so much the logistics of having to rearrange his original pickup but the fact that he knew where she’d probably trail them to. The Bemerton. And he didn’t like the idea of that one bit.
Bjorn, having come to a similar conclusion, was definitely not in favour. A Council Estate virgin, he’d never been in one first hand but, from all secondhand accounts, they were not places to enter lightly. The problem was it was impossible to say no to Celeste when she was set on doing something, partially because he hated to see her eyes get all large and glossy when they welled with tears but ultimately because she’d always find a way to do it anyway. And in this case, if she was going, he definitely didn’t want her going alone.
We flash back to the phone conversation.
‘…Oh, alright. But listen, you be careful and make sure Sandi waits. OK?’
Celeste thanks him as she grabs Bjorn and runs towards Malvern Terrace. There’s no way she’s giving up Rust without a fight.
‘Don’t worry about it, darlin’…don’t mention it.’
And with that, the chase is set in motion. Bjorn and Celeste arrive at Sandip’s silver Saloon, a Peugeot 407 from the late nineties, open the back door and pile in. Celeste quickly brings Sandip up to speed and they head off in the direction the boys have gone, past the terraced houses on Richmond Avenue guarded by Egyptian-inspired sphinxes and obelisks, towards the Caledonian Road.
***
The Bemerton Estate sits squat in the middle of an area once described as ‘little Belfast’, the unsightly border to leafy Barnsbury. It is a no man’s land on the west side the Caledonian Road: a gutter that carves the course from King’s Cross to Holloway, characterised by the bookies and copycenters that fill most rundown high streets. Terrorised by a gang called the ‘Untouchables’ in the late nineties, the Hollywood dramatisation had passed but not the legacy of its ‘anti-social’ youths. Compared to its parochial cousin, The Barnsbury Estate, Bemerton’s brutalist, sixties sensibility lent to its reputation as harder stuff.
As they pull up to the junction, Celeste spots one of the boys from the gang.
‘Sandi, you can drop us off here, you can’t take the car any closer and we’re going to lose them.’
Although he knows she’s right, he’s hesitant.
After a pause.
‘OK. I’ll wait for you here. But be careful.’
She nods and looks to Bjorn.
The camera pans as we see them get out and run after the boy, crossing the pedestrianised entrance to the estate. Now, if they’d had a chance to look at the landscape around, and judged it by Charlie’s ‘bricks and mortar’ meter, they would surely have thought twice but they were young and, at least one of them was reckless so, instead of stopping on Tulloch Street and turning around, they go in. Past the primary coloured map of the estate and the signs reading ‘NO BALL GAMES’, completely ignoring the metres of coiled barbed wire covering the building opposite: a fortress by geographical default.
Celeste can’t imagine why anyone would want Rust. As the name implies, he had been a purchase of love not practicality and his value lay in nostalgia and aesthetics, not in hardware. If they stole him it was just for the sake of stealing. Perhaps idealistically (perhaps due to the cider on tap), she felt she had a solid chance to reason with the culprits.
We follow them as they pass under a covered walkway with a recognisable green and white sign - the telltale mark of Islington Council – that reads, Coatbridge House. Its low overhang makes the transgression onto private property more unwelcoming.
‘I wonder if that’s for their safety or for ours,’ Bjorn mutters.
He glances at Celeste’s face and instantly feels sorry for the comment. He gives her a small, reassuring smile and hopes they won’t find anyone on the other side.
They reach an opening and in the darkness, her skin seems luminous; ethereal against the dark courtyard. The fluorescent lit terraces and stairwells give the place an ominous feeling, casting a sickly yellow light that, although installed for safety, suggests otherwise. Perth House looms in the distance, a mix of pebbledash, concrete and glass. As they approach, a young boy of about 10 steps out of the shadow and shakes his head.
‘Listen, are you looking for something around here?’
‘A bike,’ Celeste replies. ‘My bicycle was stolen from up the road and I would like to ask for it back. Or to buy it back… I just need to speak with whoever took it. Can you help?’
The boy looks at her skeptically; he’s never seen any of the older boys return anything. But as a young boy, he feels the inexplicable attachment to metal modes of transport that don’t need a license.
‘Alright, I’ll see what I can do. But not promisin’ anything, alright? …Y’understand?’
She nods in reply. And they wait while he disappears.
Five minutes go by and they are getting ready to give up. The courtyard is deserted except for a few lone tenants trickling into the compound. Just as Bjorn is about to suggest they make their way back to Sandip the boy reappears.
‘Well, first time they might make a deal. But they say it’s gonna cost you fifty quid. Not a penny less.’
Celeste’s eyes flash with a mix of anger and then soften.
‘Oh…ugh. Alright then. Here.’
Celeste reaches for her wallet and then remembers she left it in the pub with her bag.
‘Shit. Bjorn, think you could spot me?’
‘Of course, let me see what I have.’
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out some notes.
‘Here. And hurry back.’
He extends his hand to the boy who grabs the money and is off like a shot. Celeste sighs, walks up to Bjorn and rests her head on his chest.
‘Thanks for coming with me,’ she breathes into his shirt. ‘At least that was all they wanted.’
‘Do you really think I’d leave you to come alone?’
Bjorn reaches to stroke her hair.
‘I know, but still. It means a lot to me. I know that thing is a piece of crap but I just…well, you know how much I love Rust.’
‘I know.’
The temperature has dropped and they both are beginning to get cold. There isn’t a sign of the boy anywhere and it’s been nearly 10 minutes. They decide to look where he ran off but all the walkways are deserted and the corridors quiet except for the whine of electricity and distant sound of a scooter engine wailing down a neighbouring street.
‘Listen, I think we should get out of here.’
***
After the incident, Celeste contemplated leaving Barnsbury. Although she loved it, on numerous occasions she saw ASBO toting teens clipping locks and trying to hot-wire scooters. Once she had even called 999 (the only time in her life) and they had questioned her for longer than the amount of time it would have taken them to send someone over. She felt degraded and realised that it was rare that she saw any child over the age of 10 who didn’t look like he was getting up to mischief of some sort: trying to talk loudly over their counterparts, boast or intimidate. She even had a pack of boys throw snowballs at her as she walked home one night.
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