read your arrest sheet,’ Franklin said.
‘Yeah? I bet that was a fine piece of fiction. They probably write poetry in their spare time, like that dickhead detective on telly.’
‘What did happen?’
‘You have to ask?’
‘Yeah, I have to ask. If the police report is a fine piece of fiction then I need someone else to tell me some fine fact, right?’
Everton breathed out noisily. ‘OK. I got no call to take it out on you.’ He sighed. ‘What happened was what always happens. Someone gives the police reason to freak, and they freak. Arrest anyone they can who’s the right colour, fill up the cells, then retire to their easy chairs upstairs to square their stories…’
‘What happened? Did a police car get petrol-bombed?’
Everton smiled. ‘Yeah. It was a couple of dumb kids. They’s probably halfway to Jamaica by now. They just roll this Coke can full of petrol with a bit of rag in it under the car. There’s no one inside it – the cops are inside Dr Dread’s, looking for some reason to bust him again. And the bomb goes off, but only like a firework – the car don’t go up or nothing. I was right there, talking to Benjy, when it all happens, and we see these kids in the garden next door playing cricket so we run in and try and get ’em to move in case there’s an explosion, right, but they ignore us, so we have to steal their bat. They come running after us, and the next thing I know about five policemen are jumping on top of me and throwing me in the back of a van. And they bring me here. And they make up a nice story for the magistrates, who all look at me like I should be grateful for not having been shot already.’ He looked at his brother. ‘That’s the whole story,’ he said.
‘And they beat you up?’
‘Not really. Just a couple of playful punches in the van. It was nothing much. I was lucky. Like I say, some of the Rastas really got treated bad.’
Franklin looked at the floor. Somewhere deep inside him, in that place he had learned to shut it away, his anger was straining for release. He suppressed the urge – where could it take him that he had not already been? He asked if Benjy had also been arrested.
‘No. He must have picked the right road to run down. Or maybe he just not carrying a cricket bat…’
‘So he can be a witness. Where’s he live?’
‘He won’t want to make himself that conspicuous. He knows what happens if he does.’
‘What happens?’
‘You’ve been away too long, bro. His car gets stopped every time he goes out, his social security gets delayed, the sniffer dogs take a liking to his house…you know.’
‘I’ll talk to him anyway. And there must have been other witnesses.’
‘Hundreds. And they all know they’re on a hiding to nothing. Even if they speak out the judges take the word of the policeman. So why speak out?’
Franklin had no answer. ‘You still looking for a job?’ he asked Everton.
‘Me and the rest of Brixton.’
‘I’ll get you out of here,’ Franklin said.
‘Oh yeah? Then I’ll keep my eyes on the windows for when the big black man comes abseiling in.’
Franklin refused to be provoked. ‘I’ll talk to some people,’ he said.
‘Worrell,’ his brother said, ‘one thing I like to know. The next time Brixton goes up, and they need the Army to put out the fire, whose side you be on?’
‘I go where my conscience say I should go,’ Franklin said. ‘I not on anyone’s side,’ he added, noticing that it only needed a few minutes with Everton and the old anger to have him talking like a Rasta again.
‘Then I hope your conscience is in good shape, man,’ Everton said, ‘cos I think you’re gonna need it to be.’
‘Yeah. You worry about your own future,’ Franklin said, getting up. ‘And don’t go assaulting no more policeman’s boots with your head.’
‘I’ll try real hard to restrain myself.’
‘Any message for Mum?’
‘Tell her I’m OK. Not to worry.’
‘OK. I’ll be back.’
As if on cue, Detective-Sergeant Wilson opened the door.
‘We’re done,’ Franklin said. He had already decided to make no complaint about the beating his brother had been given. It would serve no purpose, and it might conceivably get in the way of getting Everton released. ‘I appreciate your help,’ he told Wilson, catching a glimpse of his brother’s disapproving face over the detective’s shoulder.
Out on Brixton Road once more, he took a deep breath of fresh air and walked slowly back in the direction he had come. The crowd was still clustered around the bank of televisions, watching the now-married twosome leaving St Paul’s. They looked happy enough, Franklin thought, but who could really tell? He wondered if they had made love yet, or if the royal dick was yet to be unveiled. Maybe the Queen Mother would cut a ribbon or something.
He remembered his own mother had asked him to pick up some chicken wings in the market. Her younger son might be in custody, but the older one still had to be fed. Franklin recrossed the road and walked down Electric Avenue to their usual butcher. A street party seemed to be getting under way, apparently in celebration of the royal event. Prince Charles was the most popular establishment figure in Brixton – in fact, he was the only popular establishment figure. People thought he cared, which in the summer of ’81 was enough to make anyone look like a revolutionary.
The only big difference between this and a thousand other British neighbourhoods was the colour scheme – the flags and balloons were all red, yellow and green rather than red, white and blue. Even the kids milling on the street corners seemed to have smiles on their faces this morning, Franklin noticed. For a couple of hours it was just possible to believe there was only one Britain.
Unless, of course, you were locked up in one of the Brixton Police Station’s remand cells for no better reason than being the wrong colour in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One of the many heads of state attending the Royal Wedding was Sir Dawda Jawara, President of the small West African state of The Gambia. In the colonial twilight of the early 1960s Jawara had led his nascent country’s pro-independence movement, and ever since that heady, flag-exchanging day in 1965 he had presided over the government of the independent state. The Gambia was not exactly a huge pond – its population had only recently passed the half-million mark and its earnings were mostly derived from groundnuts and tourism – but there was no doubting who was the biggest fish.
The Wedding over, the embassy limousine swished President Jawara out of London and south down the M23 towards Haywards Heath, where he planned to spend a long weekend with an old college friend. With him he had one
