An activist who departed the gathering moments before them is searching pockets. She therefore pulls out a worn Zippo and is happy to accept the offer of a roll-up in return. As she lights for all three of them she revels in the crackle each time the first flakes of tobacco incinerate. These days she can claim her smoking is restricted purely for operational purposes and so she forbids herself from thinking the cigarette tastes good. Her asset effects introductions then, after a couple of minutes of small talk between them, gives the excuse of needing to go make a telephone call.
‘Hey’ she opens. ‘I hear your place is also a bit of a shrine to Gaia?’
Given the weeks of work which have laid the groundwork for this approach, the response is as enthusiastic as anticipated.
‘You too? I’m a complete devotee. Got a small shrine. Pictures everywhere. My flatmate’s forever complaining he can’t open the fridge because my artwork’s always plastered across it.’
‘Whereabouts d’you live then?’ she continues.
Naturally she is already apprised of the answer.
‘Brixton way.’
‘Oh I’m often heading over there. Which part?’
‘Astoria Walk if you know it? Behind the Academy.’
Her senses are overwhelmed as they kaleidoscope through the flatmate’s source of annoyance a moment ago, the dingy lane and music venue just mentioned, and the suburb in south west London where are all located. Slowly, small shards of comprehension begin to form, but a coherent pattern remains elusive. Realising her face will have registered a strong reaction, some form of explanation is required. To buy herself some thinking space, she gushes
‘No shit? I go to heaps of gigs there. So who’ve you been to see lately?’
She pretends to listen to the eager account of some band she barely recognises before, finally, enlightenment descends and the top line of the handwritten note that has been bothering her since the weekend mosaics into focus. The Brixton Fridge nightclub! Or FRIG as his Enid Blyton spelling had it. Presumably it’s mere coincidence that The Academy backs onto a side-street bearing the same name as the West End club where her most recent Saturday night was ruined. Though its starting letters – AST – probably got jotted down because the organiser of both events, the missing link between The Astoria and The Fridge, is Barry bloody … HADLEY. She scolds herself for not spotting it sooner. Not least as his name adorns a huge proportion of the promotional flyers she’s been handed over the past year.
So surely there has to be some sort of connection between her colleague’s bizarre questions in the office this morning, his out-of-character presence at ‘Sin’ and the cryptic message subsequently unearthed? Doubtless all will loop back somehow to the decision to entrust him with the Operation referred to as STOAT, but how? It’s beginning to look less likely that he tried hard to disguise what he wrote. Whether this was out of laziness or incompetence is still to be decided, once there’s been an opportunity to analyse the remaining numbers and text.
By now she’s silently cursing that she can’t break off what she’s doing in order to return to her copy of the note. Mostly, she reminds herself with a mental slap, because Ella has made her agree that jobs like this must continue to be viewed as highest priority. Though also because it sits in a safe not four miles away as the crow flies, although that figure may as well be four thousand for all the good it does her. Patience may be a virtue but it’s another that, all too often, she fails to aspire to. In her current circumstances however, she’s just going to have to make an exception.
Delighted nonetheless with the breakthrough, she refocuses her attention on the cultivation challenge.
҉
It’s after ten by the time she assesses she can get away without it being noted.
Her ears strain through the dank mist which has reduced visibility, muffling every footfall. Even allowing for it being a Monday, the area she is working her way through is quiet. She turns into a pedestrian walkway then veers left into a litter-strewn alley. Careful to avoid all the dog shit, she is revisited by the comment of the most forceful girl present tonight, that she’d look more like the kick-ass singer from the Bocca Juniors music video if she’d wear her hair shorter
|| I see you shudder slightly in the chill ||
‘So ow’s your evening?’
This voice she hears is mild. Summoning.
She approaches tentatively, eyes wide but through the shadows she can distinguish only a shape huddled into the doorway.
‘You don’t sound too great’ she says in response.
‘Bit of a chest cough, you know ʼow it is.’
She delves into her bag for the half-pack of throat lozenges, around which she wraps a note.
It is all but snatched from her, held up briefly to the orange-grey haze masquerading as London’s winter night sky, then disappears underneath a blanket.
‘You’re a bloody angel you are.’
‘And you wanna get that cold seen to proper’ she responds. ‘Seems to ʼave spread into your tiny brain.’
The resulting chuckle hacks up a ball of phlegm, which is instantly gobbed away.
‘I never recognised you there for a moment’ she admits.
Waving away the bottle tilted towards her, she goes to sit, grateful that the tassels of the green tartan rug just about stretch to her chest as well as tucking beneath her outer leg. An iciness nevertheless rises from between the flagstones, pressing through her jeans and into the cheeks of her bum. She registers the other’s mouth and nose buried deep into the wool and reflects how pungent its smell has become since first being gifted.
‘Got ʼowt new for us?’ she enquires.
‘No love I aven’t noticed nothing. Everything’s been well quiet.’
A pause.
‘So what you doing this far back then?’ she asks.
‘I … I thought I’d be more out the wind.’
From the hesitation, she gauges a level of embarrassment.
‘You get fucked over again?’
She remains soft in her questioning.
No reply.
‘Gotta stand up for yourself y’know. Best simply to keep away from all them wrong types where you can.’
‘Yeh yeh. Still, one of these days I’ll ʼave saved up enough to move to a safer postcode won’t I?’
‘Ha.’
She’s heard the joke before but burrows in a gentle elbow all the same.
They sit in silence for a couple more minutes, their bodies radiating warmth at one another and out into the night.
She perceives a glance in her direction.
‘Know what? Pretty girl like you really shouldn’t pull your hair back all the time like that.’
As it did earlier in the evening the description jars, though she shows no reaction. This being the first occasion a personal comment has been made to her, it’s a sign of deepening trust.
No one has passed by either end of the side street so, after a while longer, she reaches around to give a shoulder hug. Even this slight movement makes her realise just how much the concrete has numbed her already.
‘Rayt then. Best be off. Contact us when you get summut. Meantime, take care of yourself.’ Then almost as an afterthought. ‘You sorted at moment?’
‘Yeh got plenty.’
‘Well ʼere you go anyway.’
As she stands she presses a small package into the closest hand.
‘Ta’ comes the response and, a moment later, ‘Nighty night Maisie. You mind out for yourself too. ʼEre ain’t the sort of neighbourhood where nice people loiter, know what I mean?’
‘Too frigging right’ she mutters, moving off.
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