Play With Fire

by William Shaw

  ‘It’s carrot cake,’ said Elfie. ‘I made real lemonade too. For the picnic.’

  Helen spat biscuit crumbs. ‘You can’t make cake out of carrots.’

  ‘You’re not even dressed yet, Hel. We’ve got to get there in plenty of time because it’ll be super-crammed and we’ll probably have to walk from Oxford Circus.’

  ‘We’ll just push our way to the front,’ said Helen. ‘Make way. Two pregnant ladies.’

  They laughed. Sergeant Cathal Breen stood there listening to the two women, still looking down at his new pair of trousers. They weren’t very flared at all, really, but he worried that they looked stupid on a man his age. Jeans were for young people. They’d look fine on Helen because she was eight years his junior. He’d bought a pair of dark glasses too.

  ‘What do you think of the trousers, Elfie?’

  ‘Do you like them, Paddy?’

  ‘That wasn’t what I asked.’

  ‘Just be yourself, for once, Paddy. Not “The Man”. Just be who you want to be. Come on, Hel. We’ll miss it if you don’t come now.’

  He scowled at her, but she was right. The world was changing; he should change too. He would go to a rock concert. He would enjoy himself. It would be great, wouldn’t it?

  ‘Anyway, we can’t leave yet. We’re waiting for Amy,’ said Helen, stretching the skin at the bottom of her left eye as she put mascara on in the mirror. Amy was another girl friend. Breen had grown up motherless, raised by his Irish father. All his working life had been around men. Now, it seemed, he was surrounded by women. He was not used to it.

  ‘Is she coming with us?’

  ‘Course.’

  Amy arrived in a white men’s collarless shirt and denim shorts. ‘Where from?’ demanded Elfie.

  ‘Portobello Market. Second-hand.’

  ‘You are so cool,’ said Elfie. ‘Seriously cool.’

  Amy kept her hair short and wore her eye make-up thick. Where Breen’s girlfriend Helen was angular and lanky-limbed, Amy was round-faced and her skin shone; she could pass for a model, even in a dead man’s shirt.

  As they walked to the bus stop, Breen tried the dark glasses on and ran his hand through his hair. It was getting too long. He should have it cut.

  At Tottenham Court Road, from the top deck of the bus, they started to notice the change. It wasn’t the usual Saturday crowd with prams and bags.

  From all around, the young people were gathering. They carried backpacks, blankets and guitars slung over shoulders. The men wore T-shirts or had their shirts hanging out of the trousers. There was paisley, tartan, leather, embroidered sheepskin. A woman walked barefoot, not caring how dirty she became. On the news they’d shown hundreds of them sleeping overnight in the park so that they could keep a space at the front of the stage.

  At Bourne and Hollingsworth, the crowd of shoppers parted. Two men, dressed in black and wearing Nazi helmets, strode west towards Hyde Park. People stared. The men pretended not to notice.

  Elfie and Helen were at the front of the bus; he was sitting with Amy, just behind them, with Elfie’s hamper, full of sandwiches, cake and thermoses, on his lap.

  ‘I bet you don’t even like the Stones,’ said Amy.

  ‘Loathe them,’ said Breen. ‘The drummer’s OK, suppose.’

  ‘I adore them,’ said Amy. ‘They’re beautiful.’

  At Oxford Circus they got off the bus and started to walk through the throng; the closer they got, the thicker the crowd became.

  Ahead of them, someone was blowing bubbles. Against the blue sky, they drifted above the heads of the hippies. Amy took the Super 8 movie camera she carried everywhere out of her bag and pointed it at them.

  As she filmed them, beautiful people posed and pouted, laughed and waved.

  ‘Christ,’ Breen said aloud as they crossed Park Lane. As far as he could see, there were people. Some were sitting on the grass, some were perched in the branches of the trees, some were handing out pamphlets, others playing guitar or dancing.

  There was a war going on; old versus young. Here the young were winning. Other places, not so much. Last year the Soviet tanks had moved into Czechoslovakia. In Poland, they had come down hard on the student strikes. There had been concerts here in the park before, but nothing anywhere near as big as this.

  ‘Go on, say it,’ said Helen.

  ‘No. It’s great,’ he said.

  She grinned at him. To be fair, it wasn’t that he resented young people having fun, just because his generation had never had anything like it; it was that so many people in one place made him nervous.

  Helen understood that. She reached out and took his hand. Keep calm. You’re not a copper today. He squeezed her hand back. Wherever Elfie and Amy saw peace and transcendence, he saw potential for crime and disaster. That’s what the job did to you. Helen would know what he had been thinking, because she had been a policewoman too, once, working alongside him before she became pregnant.

  And then the thick, oily scent came. People were smoking drugs; it was blatant.

  ‘You’re not on duty,’ said Helen. ‘Leave it.’

  ‘Didn’t say anything.’

  ‘What are you two lovers whispering about?’ said Elfie.

  ‘Nothing.’

  It’s why Amy’s boyfriend John Carmichael wouldn’t come, even though Amy had asked him to. He was Drug Squad, jeans and all.

  A uniformed copper was trying to keep people out of the road. He grinned. ‘Hiya, Sarge.’

  Breen recognised a young thick-necked constable from D Division, working overtime. ‘What are you doing here, with this bloody lot, Sarge?’

  For a second, Breen felt like a schoolboy caught bunking off. He was about to speak when Helen raised her finger to her lips and looked from left to right. ‘Shh. He’s undercover.’

  ‘God, sir. Sorry. Didn’t realise.’

  ‘Carry on, Constable,’ said Breen, and winked at him.

  Helen was giggling; she looked around for Elfie who had disappeared into the crowd. Breen spotted her beckoning to them. ‘Over here!’

  She was holding hands with a big man who wore a baseball jacket and Michael Caine glasses. Like Breen, he was older than most people around him. With his free hand he was rubbing her large belly. ‘How long till the baby, Elfie?’

  Elfie grinned. ‘This is Tom,’ she announced loudly enough for everyone to hear. ‘Tom Keylock. He works with the Stones.’

  ‘Don’t tell everybody. Christ sake, woman. Can’t stop though, Elfie. I’m mad bloody busy.’

  ‘Can you get us somewhere where we can see it properly, Tom? This is my best friend Hel. She’s pregnant too. Please, Tom.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Tom. ‘Always the bloody chancer, Elfie.’

  ‘Please, Tom. Pretty please?’

  He rolled his eyes and grinned. ‘Come on then, girls.’

  Now Elfie was tugging Helen through the crowd, past loud activists with manifestos, and earnest hippies sitting cross-legged on the grass, past young women in cut-off jeans, revelling in the easy power of beauty, past the saucer-eyed man giggling to himself, towards the stage at the middle of the park.

  The Hell’s Angels were doing security. A young, pale-haired biker was turning people away from the back-stage area. Only a few, presumably those who knew some secret password, were admitted. It was funny, thought Breen, how a generation that hated the police so unthinkingly let these swastika’d bullies take their place. Helen must have noticed the look on Breen’s face because she said, ‘Don’t. OK?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘They’re cool,’ Tom insisted to the man on security, and the Hell’s Angel stood aside, moving as slowly as he could, as if to show his contempt for anyone so straight.

  They had made it into a small, fenced area by the side of the stage. Elfie laid out the blanket and opened the basket. ‘Ta-da!’ she said. ‘Best seat in the house.’

  ‘Got to run,’ said Tom, kissing Elfie on the cheek. ‘Be good, darling
. Love to Klaus.’ Elfie’s boyfriend.

  Breen was holding out his hand to say thank you to the man when Elfie asked, ‘What about Brian? Were you there?’

  Tom’s smile vanished. ‘Not when it happened. No.’

  ‘They’re saying he committed suicide.’

  ‘Got to go,’ Tom said again, quietly, and pulled away.

  ‘You can’t actually see the band from here,’ Helen was complaining as she tried to peer past a palm tree that had been placed by the improvised stairs up to the temporary stage.

  Elfie didn’t seem to hear. ‘I think it’s sad,’ she said.

  ‘Are you still on about the cake?’ asked Helen.

  ‘No. Brian Jones.’

  ‘He drowned,’ said Helen. ‘That’s what it said in yesterday’s paper.’

  ‘Never believe what you read in the papers,’ said Elfie, opening a bottle of beer and passing it to Breen. ‘Everybody is saying he was distraught because they’d kicked him out of the Stones. It was his group, after all.’

  A band started playing on stage, but it wasn’t the one most people had come to see. Nobody paid them much attention.

  ‘Didn’t your boyfriend arrest Brian Jones last year?’ said Helen.

  ‘Did he?’ said Amy. ‘Nothing would surprise me.’

  Breen shook his head. ‘It was before his time.’ John Carmichael was Breen’s oldest friend; they had been at school together, signed up for the force together. ‘That was long before he joined the Drug Squad. He was still working with me on D Division.’

  ‘Bloody shut up, you,’ whispered Elfie. ‘If they find out you’re a copper I’ll never live it down.’

  ‘What happened to “Just be yourself, Paddy”?’ said Breen.

  ‘Just don’t be a policeman, OK? I don’t know why you’re here. You don’t even like rock music. First time I ever met you was when you called through our letter box telling us to turn down our moronic racket,’ said Elfie.

  Helen laughed. Breen smiled at her. ‘It was loud.’

  ‘Nothing like this!’ She pointed at the massive stacks of speakers, piled on scaffolding in front of the stage.

  ‘He’s a dinosaur,’ said Helen. ‘He still wears a string vest. At least John doesn’t wear old man clothes.’

  Amy wrinkled her nose.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I think we’re splitting up, me and John.’

  ‘No,’ said Helen.

  ‘He never asks me out any more. Every time we’re supposed to meet he calls up with some excuse.’

  ‘He’s a policeman. You know how it is.’

  Amy lifted her camera again and held it to her eye, looking through it, though she didn’t press the shutter release. ‘I don’t care,’ she said.

  From behind the barrier, people stared at them in the enclosure, trying to work out if they were celebrities or not. It was a strange feeling. Elfie was clearly enjoying it, flinging her arms around Helen as someone from the crowd photographed them.

  It was a free concert and it looked like everyone in London who was under thirty was there. Just ordinary people, having fun. What was wrong with that? thought Breen.

  ‘I bet he’s here somewhere,’ said Helen, looking around. ‘Big John. Sniffing around with his Drug Squad mates. They can’t resist something like this.’

  ‘It’s his job,’ said Breen.

  ‘Be ironic if he arrested one of us,’ said Elfie.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ said Amy, with a sad smile. ‘That’s how we met. He busted our cinema.’

  Elfie thought this was hilarious, even though she’d heard the story before. Amy worked at the Imperial in Portobello Road where the air at the late night screenings was often thick with pot smoke.

  ‘He hates the Stones. Only likes bloody jazz. Like Cathal. Anyway, who’s saying what about Brian Jones?’ asked Helen.

  ‘What if he was killed?’ said Elfie.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Brian Jones. Tom worked with Brian. He says they kicked him out of the band. What if…’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ said Helen.

  Elfie was handing out sandwiches. She’d made dozens. ‘I’m not the only one saying it, Hel. Bloody hell. Don’t look. It’s Keith bloody Moon.’

  Helen turned. ‘Where?’

  ‘I bloody love him.’

  They watched Keith Moon passing around a bottle of wine which people were swigging from, until a man carrying four large cardboard boxes, one piled on top of the other, blocked their view. The boxes seemed to be extraordinarily light from the way he carried them. With the help of a lanky man in a cotton shirt, he stacked them up by the side of the enclosure, ten feet away from them.

  Tom Keylock returned. ‘That them?’ he was asking. ‘Sure they’re still alive?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Open them and find out. Where do they want them?’

  ‘Put them on stage when they go on.’

  Helen called over, ‘What’s in them?’

  ‘Butterflies.’

  ‘Butterflies?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ said Tom.

  Elfie had spotted someone else she recognised in the crowd. ‘Hey, come and join us,’ she called, waving at a dreamy young girl with long dark hair. The girl looked up, smiled shyly, gave a little wave back, then looked down again.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘She’s going out with Eric Clapton,’ said Elfie.

  ‘Never,’ said Amy. ‘She doesn’t look old enough.’

  ‘Seventeen,’ said Elfie.

  ‘How old’s he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Look,’ said Helen, suddenly excited. Dropping her food, she pushed herself up off the grass.

  A little way off, a crowd of photographers were snapping eagerly. A couple of men were walking towards the stage. Both were dressed in long, untucked shirts. The one with the blue shirt paused to sign a piece of paper for someone.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m backstage with the Rolling bloody Stones,’ said Helen, grinning like a teenager.

  ‘It’s their new guitarist,’ said Elfie. ‘The one who replaced Brian…’

  Amy’s movie camera was whirring as she focused it on the newcomers.

  ‘The other one,’ said Breen, nodding towards the gaunt-faced young man with long dark hair and big sunglasses. ‘I came across him a couple of times.’

  ‘You did?’ squealed Elfie. ‘Keith Richards?’

  ‘Yes. Met him through work.’

  Elfie’s face fell. ‘Don’t say you bloody arrested him too?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ said Breen. ‘You don’t want everyone knowing I’m a copper, do you?’

  He was aware of Helen grabbing hold of him. She was suddenly pale. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Stood up too quickly,’ she said. ‘A bit dizzy, that’s all.’

  She slumped back down again, leaning over into her lap. He dropped to his knees beside her.

  When the Rolling Stones came on she was still sitting down, feeling lousy, while Elfie and Amy danced and hooted at the group they couldn’t quite see. The air was full of pale butterflies struggling to take wing, and landing on their clothes.

  In the taxi home to Stoke Newington, Helen placed a hand over the bulge. ‘Sorry, Cathal.’

  ‘I wasn’t really enjoying it, anyway. Not my thing, really.’

  ‘Yes you were,’ she said. ‘For once. You were actually having fun.’

  ‘Just being out with you, you know.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I wanted to see it. I really did. I love the Stones. They’re fantastic.’

  He put his arms around her and she didn’t move away. He was glad. He liked being able to look after her. Even if they hadn’t planned it that way, she was pregnant with his child. It was the summer of 1969, the sun was shining, and he was happier than he could ever remember being.

  FOUR

  When he woke, Helen was already padding around in the hallway between their rooms.

 
She insisted on sleeping in the spare bedroom, even though he’d offered to buy a bigger bed that they could both share.

  ‘Felt sick,’ she said. She still looked pale from yesterday.

  ‘I’ll make a cup of tea.’

  She walked over and followed him into the kitchen, lighting a cigarette. ‘What am I supposed to do? I’m not used to not working. It’s driving me nuts.’

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to do anything.’

  ‘I’ve worked all my life, on the farm or as a copper.’ Farm girl; still had the Devon accent. He had grown fond of it.

  ‘I don’t understand why you think you have to, that’s all. I’m earning enough.’

  She just blew out smoke right at him. ‘La la la,’ she said.

  It was going to be a bright sunny day. They should go out, walking in Clissold Park; it would be full of families. Boys would be playing with kites. Instead, she picked up her Arthur Hailey and started reading, ignoring him. She was still on the couch, a thin Japanese dressing gown covering her naked body, chewing on her tongue as she turned the pages, when the phone rang.

  ‘It’ll be your mother,’ said Breen. Mrs Tozer usually called on Sunday mornings; telephone rates were cheaper. ‘News from the farm. The price of milk.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘Want me to get it?’ She didn’t move from he couch, so he picked up the phone.

  ‘Sorry, Paddy. I know it’s a day off, and all.’

  It wasn’t Mrs Tozer, calling from Devon. Behind the crackle and echo, the voice was Detective Inspector Creamer’s; his boss.

  ‘I told them I’d put one of my very best men on it,’ he was saying in a jovial voice. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Creamer?’ mouthed Helen. He nodded. Helen rolled her eyes.

  Anyone else, it would be an order. But Creamer treated him almost like an equal. Do you mind? Like it was an invitation to an inconvenient dinner party. Creamer was the new boss, nervous around his more experienced sergeant.

  ‘What does he want?’ mouthed Helen.