– it’s hard to read the signs in someone else’s country. I mean, do these people have any support among the population?’
The young man considered the question. ‘Some,’ he said at last. ‘It’s hard to say how much. Today, I think, many people are still waiting to see how these people behave. They will give them the benefit of the doubt for a few days, maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘The government – the old government – was not popular. Not in Banjul, anyway.’ He stopped and looked questioningly at McGrath, as if wanting to know if he had said too much.
‘People don’t like Jawara?’ McGrath asked.
‘He is just a little man with a big limousine, who gives all the good jobs to his family and friends. He is not a bad man. People don’t hate him. But I don’t think they will fight for him, either.’
‘You think most people will just wait and see?’
‘Of course. It is easier. As long as the new men don’t behave too badly…’
‘They seem to have the Field Force on their side.’
‘Some of them. Maybe half. My uncle is in the Field Force in Fajara, and my mother wanted me to check on him, make sure he’s all right. That was another reason I came to the office: to borrow the jeep,’ he added, hopefully.
‘Fine, I’ll come with you,’ McGrath said.
Franklin had been woken early by his mother setting off for the dawn shift at the South Western Hospital in Clapham, and then again by his sister leaving for school. When he finally surfaced it was gone eleven, and he ate a large bowl of cornflakes in front of the TV, watching the opening hour of the Third Test between England and Australia. The play hardly came up to West Indian standards, but the England batting did remind him of the last time they had faced Roberts and Holding. Boycott and Gower were both gone before he had finished his second cup of coffee.
With some reluctance he turned off the television, got dressed and left the house. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt – the people he meant to see today would not be impressed by his uniform. In fact, they would probably use it for target practice if they thought they could get away with it.
The weather was much the same as it had been for the Royal Wedding, but the mood on the streets seemed less sunny, more like its usual sullen self. Franklin’s first port of call was the address for Benjy which Everton had given him – a sixth-floor flat on a big estate in nearby Angell Town. Benjy, a thin young man with spiky hair and gold-rimmed glasses, was alone, watching the cricket.
‘You know why I’ve come?’ Franklin started.
‘It’s about Everton.’
‘Yeah.’
He let Franklin in with some reluctance, but offered him a cup of tea. While he was making it Gooch was bowled out. England were doing their best to make the Australians feel at home.
‘Did you see what happened?’ Franklin asked, when Benjy came back with the tea.
‘When?’
‘When he was arrested.’
‘No. I’m running too hard, you know. One moment the street is empty, the next the policemen are tripping over each other. I go straight down the alley by Dr Dread and over the wall and out through the yards. The last time I see Everton he is standing there with the cricket bat. I yelled at him to come, but he must have run the other way.’
‘OK,’ Franklin said. ‘Did you know anyone else who was there, anyone who might have seen what happened?’
Benjy shook his head. ‘They all got arrested. Or they didn’t stop to watch and didn’t see nothing. Like I and I. I’s sorry, Worrell, but that’s how it goes. Anyways, if the police all saying one thing, then nobody listen to nobody else.’ He opened his palms in a gesture of resignation.
Franklin walked down the twelve flights of steps rather than face the smell of concentrated urine in the lift, and stopped for a moment on the pavement outside the building, giving the sunshine a chance to lighten his state of mind.
It did not work. He walked back towards the centre of Brixton, hyper-aware of the world around him. There were too many people on the streets, too many people not actually going anywhere. It felt like a football crowd before a game, a sense of expectation, a sense of looming catharsis. It felt ugly.
He walked up to Railton Road to the address his mum had given him, where the local councillor held surgeries on a Thursday afternoon. Franklin did not know Peter Barrett very well, but his father had always had good things to say about the man, and even Everton had given him the benefit of the doubt.
The queue of people ahead of Franklin bore testimony to Barrett’s popularity in the community. Or maybe just the number of problems people were facing. Franklin took out his Walkman and plugged himself into the Test Match commentary. It was still lunch, so he switched to Radio One and let his mind float to the music.
Around two it was his turn. Peter Barrett looked tired, and a lot older than Franklin remembered, but he managed a smile in greeting. Franklin explained why he was there, knowing as he did so that none of it was news to the councillor.
It turned out that Barrett had already been contacted by half a dozen relatives of those who had been arrested in Spenser Road. He was trying to get them and any witnesses they could find to a meeting on the following evening. Then they could discuss what was possible. If anything.
‘Do you still live with your parents?’ Barrett asked.
‘No, I’m in the Army,’ Franklin said, wondering what the reaction would be.
Barrett just gave him a single glance that seemed to speak volumes, before carrying on as if nothing had happened. But something had – Franklin had failed a loyalty test.
Walking back up Acre Lane he wondered if he had doomed himself to a life in permanent limbo – for ever denied full access to one world, and with no way back into the other.
In Banjul, Mustapha Diop had not had the most relaxing of mornings. The rebel soldiers who had arrived at his front door in the hour before dawn were still there, albeit outside. He had been ‘asked’ not to leave the house – in the interests of his own safety, of course – and had been unable to derive any joy from the telephone. The radio broadcast had rendered his wife almost hysterical, which was unusual, and all morning the children had been driving him mad, which was not. He was lighting yet another cigarette when two men appeared in the gateway and started across the space towards his front door.
One of them was thin-faced, with dark-set eyes and hair cut to the scalp, the other had chubbier features and seemed to be smiling. Once inside they introduced themselves as Mamadou Jabang and Sharif Sallah, respectively the new President and Foreign Secretary of The Gambia.
‘I will come directly to the point,’ Jabang said. ‘We wish you to contact your government, and to give them an accurate picture of what is happening here in Banjul…’
‘How could I know – I have been kept a prisoner here!’
‘You have not been ill-treated?’ Sallah asked in a concerned voice.
‘No, but…’
‘It
