by John Harvey
“You’ve got a real chance for an A in this,” his Art teacher had told him. “You know that, don’t you?”
Nick had shrugged and examined the floor. An A in anything would be good, and this was about the only chance he had.
“Well, you best pull your finger out then. Time’s getting on.”
Nick nodded and dragged out a “Yes, sir.”
To begin with, using a borrowed camera, he had taken pictures of some of the market stalls in Holloway and Kentish Town. Some of the stall owners had been happy to pose for him, holding up bunches of bananas, packets of men’s underpants, three for a pound, wrapping paper with last year’s Christmas design. He’d photographed the giant boots and shoes that hung above the half a million shoe stores that littered Camden High Street.
The best of these he had arranged and pasted painstakingly down on to sheets of different coloured paper, interleaved with blown-up copies of the appropriate pages from the A–Z.
The trouble was, he couldn’t really see what to do next.
He had tried painting street scenes, working from memory and a few sketches he had hurriedly made, but each time he opened his folder and looked at them he had to resist the temptation to tear them into small pieces and throw them away.
The project needed something, though, what he had on its own was not enough. He was thinking about this, not getting anywhere, when he saw Melanie Mitchell cutting across the path ahead of him, heavily-laden bags from Iceland in each hand.
Melanie lived in the same block of flats, on the top floor; her mum was a dinner lady at one of the local primary schools, and her dad worked on the post and seemed to spend most of his afternoons in the betting shop or the pub. When Nick had been a lot younger, he and Melanie had played together quite a bit, their mums chatting while they took turns to push them on the roundabouts and swings. Picnicking on the bandstand in Parliament Hill Fields.
But then, a little older, Nick had only wanted to play with boys, charging around after a football and coming home with scuffed shoes and grazed knees, and he hardly saw Melanie at all.
By the time they got to junior school, what had been chubbiness in Melanie had turned to fat and other children, Nick included, laughed at her and shouted names, poked at her with sticks, and gave cruel impressions of the way she wobbled when she walked, a jelly on a plate.
At eleven she and Nick went to different schools and not long after that he remembered his mum telling him Melanie had been sent to a special unit with some kind of eating disorder. She was thin and then she was fat again, fatter than before.
“Don’t you ever let me hear you say anything,” his mum had said. “Don’t you ever dare.”
Today, walking slowly along the path towards the flats, bags of shopping in each hand, Melanie was fat. No two ways about it.
Nick slowed his pace, letting her reach the forecourt ahead of him but then realised he’d have to wait forever while she negotiated the main door. Giving her a wide berth, he hurried ahead and was just reaching for his keys when he heard a crash and a shout and turned to see Melanie surrounded by the contents of one of her bags, some of them still rolling in slow small circles away from where she stood.
Even from that distance he could see the tears in her eyes.
The keys were cold and shiny in his hand, the door at his back.
“Here,” he said. “Hang on. I’ll give you a hand.”
“No, it’s all right. It doesn’t matter. I can manage.” Not looking him in the eye.
A jar of strawberry jam had smashed, as had a bottle of HP sauce, and heaven knew what the eggs were like inside their grey cardboard box.
Nick retrieved the first of several tins of baked beans which had rolled some distance away and set it down next to a swiss roll and a frozen Sara Lee Danish Apple Bar. Melanie had put down her other bags and was bending towards the ground.
“The handles,” she said, “they snapped.”
“Maybe we can still use the bag,” Nick said. “I’ll carry it upstairs for you.”
“My mum,” Melanie said, “she’ll go spare.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Close to, around the mouth and nose and eyes, her face was actually quite pretty, Nick realised.
“Hey, get a look at this,” came a voice from the corner of the building. “Nick and his girl friend’ve been shopping.”
Over Melanie’s shoulder, Nick could see Ross Blevitt and four or five of his entourage.
“Settin’ up house together, Nicky?”
“Shackin’ up.”
“Knocked her up, eh, Nick?”
Melanie’s neck was burning red and her hands were starting to shake.
“Ignore them,” Nick said, and continued, purposefully, to load up the broken bag.
“Nick wouldn’t fancy that, would you, Nick?” It was Blevitt himself now, pushing his way through his crew, a hundred pounds worth or more of Adidas trainers at the end of his skinny but expensive Aquascutum trousers. “Not without a compass and a torch to find the hole.”
“Shut it, Blevitt!” Nick said.
Silence closed around his words.
For some moments, nobody moved and then, slowly, Blevitt started towards Nick, staring at him all the while, not stopping until he was close enough to swing his fists at his face. Except Nick knew the last time Blevitt had got into a fight it hadn’t just been fists he’d used.
A sixteen year old from east London, Walthamstow, had come over to watch a game at Highbury with his mates and made the mistake of hanging around. He and Blevitt had got into an argument and Blevitt had left three stripes across his face, after which some of his crew had laced into him with their boots and a length of chain.
“Maybe I didn’t hear right,” Blevitt said. “Just now.”
Nick said nothing.
“Pussy!” called someone and then it echoed round. “Pussy, pussy.”
“Not so big now,” Blevitt said. “Not like your girlfriend here.”
“I told you to shut your mouth,” Nick said, even and quiet.
Blevitt’s eyes narrowed and his body tensed.
“Don’t, Nick. He’s not worth it,” Melanie said.
Blevitt’s head angled towards her in surprise. “Keep out of this, you fat slag.”
Nick knew that was his chance, get in first, strike the first blow.
A first floor window opened with a bang and an old man’s bony head poked out, white hair fluffy and unkempt around the ears. “You lot. Whatever this is, take it elsewhere.”
“Hey, Granddad!” someone shouted. “Get back in your cage.”
“And you, Nick Harman,” the old man said, pointing. “I’d’ve thought better of you.”
Nick knew him a little, ex-army, forever trying to talk his mum into joining the Neighbourhood Watch.
“Now clear off the lot of you before I phone the police.”
“Talking of the police,” Blevitt said, moving even closer to Nick, ignoring the old man’s rant. “I hear they picked you up. Suspicion of robbery.” He smiled with his eyes. “Mistaken identity. Got to be.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Maybe they thought I was you.”
Blevitt laughed. “I got better things to do.” And then, “You didn’t tell ’em nothing?”
“What d’you think?”
Blevitt studied Nick’s face then stepped away. “Come on,” he said. “We’re out of here.”
A minute or so later, they were gone. The first floor window closed and the lace curtains were quickly drawn across. Nick pushed the last few items down into the broken bag and lifted it under one arm, picking up one of the other bags with his free hand.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Melanie said.
He wasn’t sure if she meant retrieve the shopping or stand up to Ross Blevitt.
“Let’s get this inside,” he said. “I’ve got stuff to do.”
When the door to Melanie’s flat opened the sound of the television was loud from inside. �
�What’s all this then?” Melanie’s mother said.
Nick thought it was obvious enough.
He set the broken bag down on the floor alongside the rest.
“Thanks, Nick,” Melanie said.
Nick nodded and headed for the stairs. He’d have liked to think Blevitt would be content to leave things as they were, but he doubted if it were true.
eight
“What the hell got into you, man?”
They were sitting an unsteady table out in front of the café, early lunchtime Friday, kids pressing round them, Nick, Scott and Christopher, one slice of pizza apiece. While they were talking, Scott was busy texting Laura, even though she was only across the street.
“You got a death wish all of a sudden?” Christopher said.
“You’re talking bollocks,” Nick said.
‘Oh, yeah?”
“Stick to Playstation,” Scott said. “Splinter Cell. Lose your head that way.”
“I’m not afraid of Ross Blevitt.”
“Blevitt, maybe not,” said Christopher. “On his own. But Blevitt plus that bunch of Neanderthals he hangs with.”
“Look,” Nick said. “Nothing happened.”
“Yet,” said Scott. “You forget ‘yet’.”
“Jesus!”
“He’s right,” Christopher said. “Blevitt’s not going to leave it there.”
“Yeah, well we can, right? So just shut up about it.”
Grabbing his piece of pizza, Nick grated his chair round until he was looking away from his friends and out across the street. And there was Steve Rawlings, can of drink in his hand, mouthing off to a bunch of his mates. Rawlings wearing the same top, hood up, as he had when he had raced out of the alley two nights before.
Stay cool, Nick told himself. You don’t want to get involved.
But Rawlings had recognised him and was nudging his mates and jerking his head in Nick’s direction. Grinning and giving him the finger. Not caring who saw.
“Hang on here,” Nick said, getting to his feet.
“Where you going?”
“Nick, what’s up?”
Slipping between the traffic, Nick crossed to where Rawlings was standing, close to the pavement’s edge.
“Want somethin’?” Rawlings said, cocky as they come.
Nick caught hold of Rawlings’ arm, hard above the elbow. “You think it’s funny, what happened the other night? Yeah?”
Rawlings tried to shake himself free and failed, his friends milling round, waiting to see what would happen next.
“Down the police station, on account of you.”
“Leggo my arm.”
Nick tightened his grip. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Maybe next time I’ll tell them what they want to know. Okay?” He pressed harder against the arm, fingers bearing down against the bone. “Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. You say.”
“And if you stick your finger up at me again, I’ll break it off and shove it up your arse.”
One of Rawlings’ friends sniggered and abruptly Nick released his grip and turned away, Rawlings shouting something in his wake as Nick walked briskly back across the street.
“God! What was all that about?” Laura asked, having left her friends and hurried across.
“Nothing,” Nick said, pulling his chair back round to the table and sitting down.
Laura looked questioningly at Scott, who merely shrugged.
“Here,” Christopher said, pushing what was left of his pizza in Nick’s direction. “If you’re turning yourself into Steven Seagal you’d better bulk out fast.”
A little way off, one of Ross Blevitt’s lieutenants was watching everything with more than a little interest.
***
Finishing Friday afternoon with English wasn’t too bad as far as Nick was concerned. Most of the time he could just sit there, half taking in whatever was going on around him while thinking about the weekend, what he might be doing. Christopher was going off to spend time with his mum and sister in Oxford, but Scott was going to be around, maybe they’d meet up Saturday afternoon, go down Camden, even if it meant Laura tagging along. Saturday evening, Sunday lunchtime he was working.
Nick realised the teacher was looking at him, asking him a question.
The book they were doing, The Grapes of Wrath, was about migrant farmers trekking half way across America to look for work. On the way there some of them died or just gave up and then when they arrived they were stuck into camps and made to work long hours for almost no pay. Asylum seekers of their day, the teacher had said, maybe it helps to think of them that way. Economic migrants.
The question Nick was being asked now seemed to have more to do with Geography than anything and he tried faking an answer until what he was saying sounded stupid even to himself and he stopped mid-sentence and slumped back in his seat. Immediately, some wise ass at the back started on about top soil and irrigation and Nick could see from the teacher’s face that was the answer he’d been wanting.
A/B was what he’d been forecast for English, but that had been last term and most of his grades recently had been C at best.
English and Maths, Nick, his mum kept on at him. That’s what you’re going to need if you’re going to get a good job, English and Maths.
Nick shuffled a few pages of the book and glanced at his watch. The teacher was pulling down the screen over the blackboard and asking someone over by the wall to get the lights.
“I want you to look carefully at these slides, reproductions of photographs taken at roughly the same time the book is set.”
More often than not, to an ironic cheer, the first slide came on upside down or back to front or both, but this time it was fine.
“Dorothea Lange,” the teacher said, and because he no longer had access to the board, he spelt it out for them. “That’s Dorothea with a ‘ea’ and Lange with an ‘e’ at the end. Most of her photographs, those that concern us anyway, were taken in the nineteen-thirties during the Depression.”
Nick was staring at the black and white picture of a man behind the wheel of a truck or van; under his cap the man’s face is triangular and thin and his eyes are large and staring out as if he’s frightened, perhaps, of what he sees. And yes, Nick thought, it reminded him of refugees he’d seen on the news, the ones from eastern Europe somewhere, Moldova or Romania, the ones who would cling on to the underside of the Eurostar train to get across the Channel or risk being packed like sardines in the back of a lorry, half-suffocating. It even reminded him a little of men he saw outside the tube at Camden Town, begging, sleeping rough.
“Ditched, Stalled and Stranded,” the teacher said. “That’s what this photograph was called. California, 1935.”
The next slides showed a succession of similar images: men squatting at the edges of muddy fields or outside a corner store; men lying in the street or crowding round a soup kitchen; men walking with their possessions along flat, dusty roads.
“And these,” the teacher said, “are probably Dorothea Lange’s most famous photographs, two of a series of six that she took in 1936 of the same woman and her children living in a makeshift tent. The woman had just sold the tyres from her car for food.”
In the first picture the woman’s eyes were half-closed, her shirt part-open, a young child pressed up against her breast; in the second, closer, the young child is asleep and two others, toddlers, are leaning on her shoulders, backs to the camera, while her mother rests her head on her hand.
“How old,” the teacher said, “do you think this woman is?”
“Sixty,” came the first voice.
“Don’t be stupid,” said another. “What about the baby? She’s got a baby.”
“All right, then. Fifty.”
“Fifty-five.”
“Forty-seven.”
“When those shots were taken,” the teacher said, “the woman in them was just thirty-two.”
He signalled and the lights came back on, the image disappeared. “When you
’re reading,” the teacher said, “and thinking about the characters, I want you to keep those photographs in mind.”
People fidgeted in their chairs and small conversations started. It was near to the end of the lesson, the end of the day. Nick glanced inside the back of his book where he’d written Dorothea Lange’s name and flicked it shut.
nine
What had someone said about Camden Market? After the Tower and Madame Tussaud’s, it was the biggest tourist attraction in London.
That afternoon, Nick could believe it.
Walking with Scott and Laura, the crowd spreading over the pavements and into the road, it was more or less impossible for them to stick together, three abreast. Most of the visitors were young, not much older than themselves, and from the criss-cross of languages that volleyed about them, mostly foreign. Aside from the Goths, that is. Nick didn’t know why, but he assumed most of the Goths were English. Maybe he couldn’t imagine them travelling by plane or ferry wearing the whole black outfit, the gear, their hair sometimes shaped and gelled into extravagant Mohicans and every available part of their body hanging with silver rings and crucifixes. Dark purple lipstick. High boots with pointed toes.
“Nick! Nick! Over here.”
He elbowed his way to where Scott and Laura were standing in a small queue at one of several stalls selling Chinese food.
“You want anything?”
Nick shook his head. He’d cooked himself some pasta at lunchtime, the sort that was ready in three minutes, slathered it over with a jar of tomato-and-something sauce. Two scoops of ice cream from the freezer for desert. His mum would moan like crazy about the fact he’d left the washing up, but, as he liked to point out, where washing up was concerned he was now a professional and expected to be paid.