This Lovely City

The ship had been full of men seeking their fortunes, many of them having fought in the war just like Bennie and Aston, escaping the island life that was too quiet now that they’d experienced adventures across Europe and beyond. Why bother gambling with your life if all you did with your winnings was put it into the small farm that you could have had anyway, just by staying at home? Like Aston, they’d seen the advert in the Gleaner – cheap tickets back to the Motherland – and jumped at the chance to return. There was safety in accepting the embrace of the depleted British armed forces, crying out for men who’d already been trained up.

Walking the deck and breathing in air that was as salty as the unfathomable ocean beneath him, Lawrie had listened to tales of big houses, pretty girls, the wages even the most menial of jobs paid. He’d expected to arrive in the country of his schoolbooks, to walk the wide thoroughfares he’d seen on newsreels and have conversations, perhaps in a real English pub, with people who spoke like they did on the wireless. It would kill his mother if she ever found out how the English actually lived. Eating spam and shopping with coupons; living in bomb-damaged houses. It would destroy her if she could see her only living son now, if she knew that the police suspected him to be involved in the murder of a baby. She could never find out.

The next train pulled in and he watched the passengers pour out of the doors. He waited until the last old man hobbled off, no Aston in sight, and was about to give up when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

‘Fancy seein’ you here.’ Aston looked smart in his demob suit, kitbag in hand, newspaper wedged under his arm and a smile on his face.

‘What the…’ Lawrie looked around him. ‘What train you come on?’

‘Came in over there.’ Aston pointed vaguely to his right. ‘We got time for a drink? I’m parched.’ He put on a hoarse voice.

‘Then you shoulda got here earlier. I got no time, not even for a quick one before you ask.’

‘What’s up with you?’

‘Nothin’.’ Worried that the police would come back and question him. Exhausted from not sleeping. ‘I just got a lot to think about at the moment.’

‘Lyceum, right?’

Lawrie nodded.

‘Good-looking women there, I remember rightly.’

Aston was what Evie referred to as a ladies’ man when she was in a good mood, an alley cat when he annoyed her, which was often.

‘You was so drunk the last time you could barely stand. How you remember a thing?’ Lawrie reminded him. Last time had been New Year’s Eve and he’d had to throw himself off the stage mid-song to stop Aston from getting punched by some fella who’d taken against Aston dancing with his girl.

‘Never forget a thing, boy. The women, they call me the elephant.’

Lawrie rolled his eyes and groaned.

‘Get your mind out the gutter! It’s ’cause I never forgot a pretty face.’ Aston laughed and clapped his friend’s shoulder hard so that Lawrie winced. ‘Talking of which, how’s your girl?’

‘She got a name and I know you know it.’

‘I apologise sincerely. How is Miss Evelyn Coleridge, might I ask?’ Aston put on his best English accent and they both laughed as they negotiated their way across the concourse towards the exit, the crowds around them watching the departures board intently, waiting for it to announce their passage out of the city. A few commuters turned to see who these chaps were who dared to be so carefree and loud. ‘We walkin’?’

‘’Less you feel flush enough for a taxi – ’cause I do not.’

They emerged from the station. Seven o’clock on a March evening and the skies over the city didn’t even have the decency to turn black at night, the stars staying away in protest.

‘Evie is well, thanks for asking. She’s coming to the Lyceum tonight so behave yourself when you see her. She might even start to think better of you.’

‘I doubt that.’ Aston’s words were mumbled as he tried to light a cigarette, his head bent to the match sheltered between his cupped palms.

‘Well, you can at least try. You never know when a person gonna change their mind. I thought Evie’s mother couldn’t stand me but apparently she decided I’m not so bad.’

Aston snorted. ‘That woman’s a dragon, guarding she daughter like she’s some fairy tale princess. Must be gettin’ to realise no white fella’ll marry the girl so she make do with a light skin boy like you.’

‘Why you make everything an insult?’ Lawrie elbowed his friend in the side.

‘Just saying how things is,’ Aston corrected him. ‘Mrs Coleridge sees some dark skin bastard like me go near her daughter, she’d lock her away ’til the end of time. Man, she would never let me cross her threshold ’less she had a knife ready to cut me man parts off. You, on the other hand, are the educated son of a government man, or whatever your papa was. You got a steady job. Perfect son-in-law.’

‘Steady job? Keeping hold of it’s all I can manage these days.’

Aston acted like Lawrie had it so easy but, until now, he’d only ever known the RAF, had been safe in his barracks, insulated from real life. He’d not yet had to sit in those interviews with some shoddy-looking fella looking him up and down as he decided without even bothering with the CV, or asking a single question, that this nigger before him would not be working in his establishment.

‘You work too hard, boy. You all right for money?’

‘Fine. I been doin’ some extra deliveries for Derek, you know?’ He knew that Aston felt a responsibility towards him, though he wished sometimes that he didn’t. Sometimes he just wanted to be left alone, to get on with things his own way without Aston or Mrs Ryan or anyone else feeling like they needed to intervene.

‘All right. But you just say the word if you need anything.’

A light drizzle began to fall as the men crossed the road and turned onto Belvedere Road. Lawrie pulled up his collar as they walked the dingy damp street that ran parallel to the Thames, the beginnings of the new Royal Festival Hall blocking the view to the river. Each time he passed, he had to wonder at the vast building site that was slowly transforming into a great beast of a concert hall. It beggared belief that they would leave people without proper houses to live in and spend a fortune on a so-called festival, as if people could come and dance themselves out of strife and not worry that they were still having to use ration books and make do.

They climbed the steps up onto Waterloo Bridge as raindrops landed on Lawrie’s cheeks like saltless tears. Back home when it rained he had liked to stand outside and let it baptise him, the water cleansing, rejuvenating. English rain made him feel grubby, falling from that filthy sky, its dank grime sinking into his skin until he felt contaminated.

‘You ever goin’ tell me what is the matter?’ Aston said, breaking the silence.

Aston would find out soon enough. Lawrie wiped his face with his hand and forced himself to speak, recounting the events of the past two days to his dumbstruck friend.

The Lyceum was still fast asleep when they arrived via the stage door. Aston dumped his bag on a rickety wooden table in the green room and sat down with a sigh. They were the first to arrive, the other band members cutting it fine as usual. The Johnny Sands Band they were called. This was their regular Friday night slot and they usually had at least one booking on a Saturday as well. It had taken a while to build their reputation but Johnny had ambition, as well as an eldest son back in Jamaica who he wanted to bring over when funds allowed.

Telling Aston had lifted a weight, and while the shadow of his macabre discovery still loomed over him, Lawrie already felt better. He always enjoyed playing this dance hall. Although the audiences in the poky Soho clubs were more appreciative of his talent, he felt immersed in the history of this old theatre, part of something that had existed long before his time and would continue on long after. He could imagine the ghosts of Shakespearean thespians and beautiful opera sopranos who used to draw the crowds. Maybe one day people would recall hearing Lawrie Matthews at the Lyceum. He’d happily give up his job tramping the south London streets if he could make a decent living from music but chance would be a fine thing. Of all of them, only Johnny was getting by as a musician. His wife, Ursula, worked in a factory five days a week while Johnny looked after their two young offspring. She was home by four, and then off went Johnny. He could play the piano as well as sing – hotel bars paid his wages on the nights when the band wasn’t playing. But there wasn’t much call for a solo clarinettist and no one would pay to hear Lawrie sing. He could hold a tune all right, but Johnny had that rich tone to his voice that made people close their eyes as they listened, letting his voice sink into their souls like butter melting on toast. Lawrie would have been embarrassed to get up before an audience and be mediocre.

Aston reached into his bag. ‘Got any glasses?’ He pulled out a bottle of Scotch. ‘I reckon we could both do with a little pick-me-up.’

At the back of the room was an ancient cast iron sink, five mismatched mugs drying on the side. Lawrie chose the two least tannin-stained, and handed them to Aston who poured two fingers of whisky into each.

‘To a new life in London.’ Aston raised his drink, Lawrie doing the same.

‘Cheers.’

They clinked their mugs together and drank, the fumes burning the hairs in Lawrie’s nostrils before the heat hit the back of his throat.

‘So this all happen yesterday, right? You had any more trouble today?’ Aston asked, not ready to change the subject. ‘The cops, I mean.’

‘Not a word. Nothing new in the papers either, I checked.’ Lawrie’s hands had trembled as he tried to turn the pages of the newspaper that morning, expecting any moment to see his name printed there in black, sweat lifting the ink from the paper onto his fingertips. ‘It’s strange, they still never mentioned that the baby was coloured.’

Aston shrugged and lit another cigarette. ‘Maybe they’re worried about vigilantes. Don’t we know at least one fella would like an excuse to take matters into his own hands?’

‘You think there’ll be trouble? ’Cause it’ll get out at some point. Can’t see how it won’t.’

‘Almost certainly. You better watch your step. They get desperate to tie someone to this, you’re the obvious choice, ’less they know a lot more than they’re letting on.’ Aston leaned over and refilled Lawrie’s mug. ‘Your boss know?’

Lawrie nodded. At work that morning he’d gone straight to Donovan and told him everything that had happened the day before. Arthur had suggested it was better to come clean, even though Lawrie hadn’t technically been on duty at the time. He’d still been wearing his uniform and it wasn’t out of the question that Rathbone might go sniffing around his place of work, asking after Lawrie. Donovan’s lips had pressed so tightly together as he listened that they’d vanished entirely into his chubby face. None of it had happened during his shift but he could see in his boss’s narrowed eyes that he had no room to mess up from now on.

‘You think that Rose could—’

‘No!’ Lawrie snapped the syllable, surprising himself.

‘I not sayin’ you would—’ Aston stopped talking as they heard voices echo along the corridor.

‘You here already?’ Johnny walked in first, taking his role as band leader seriously. He was a smooth talker, five years older than Lawrie.

‘Just about.’ Lawrie greeted Moses and Sonny as they came in, shaking hands with Aston.

They’d formed the band right after arriving in London, though they’d run through a few changes of personnel since. Moses and Sonny were always together; drums and a double bass required transportation and a portion of the band’s earnings was always allocated to keeping Moses’s rusty old van on the road. Al was the current fifth member, on trumpet.

‘I should go. Head out front to where the action is.’ Aston winked.

‘See you later?’

‘Perhaps, but if I disappear it only means I got lucky. ’Sides, it might be wiser to steer clear of Evie. You know I only put she in a temper.’

‘What is it with you two?’

Aston walked off without answering.

Lawrie had never been able to fathom a reason for this enmity that existed between the two people closest to him. He guessed that something had happened between them at the party where he’d first introduced them. The party which had ended so badly. The one thing both of them had in common was a reluctance to talk about whatever had happened, and the last thing Lawrie wanted was to dredge up bad memories of that night.

Johnny was warming up his fingers at the piano in the corner and Lawrie began to assemble his clarinet, massaging grease lightly into the cork. It would need replacing soon, he noticed; it was wearing as thin as his nerves.

‘They asked for upbeat tonight.’ Moses unpacked the sheet music. ‘Nothing slow ’til the end. Get everybody dancing and sweating.’

‘I could use something upbeat meself,’ Al said, eying up the bottle of whisky on the side. ‘Anyone else have a knock on the door this morning?’

Johnny stopped playing. ‘Police, you mean? Last night. I was already out but they scared the hell out of Ursula. Lucky she had the pickney right there when she answered the door so they leave her be. They still was acting sus though. Wanting to know when Joy was born, where she was born, all that. They went all along the street. Ursula know ’cause she stood out on the step and watched ’em.’

Al blew out a lungful of relief. ‘I thought it was just me.’

‘You never told me they come to the house.’ Moses frowned. He and Sonny shared a room in the same house that Ursula and Johnny’s family called home, the landlord making the most out of each inch of space.

‘You was out at work, same as me,’ Johnny shot back.

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘This is ’cause of the baby, right? Clapham Common?’ Lawrie interrupted them.

Al sparked up a rollup as he spoke. ‘They never come right out and say, but they was asking me where I was Wednesday night. Who I was with. And I asked around at work and seems like they only been asking those who are of the Negro persuasion. Not a single white fella knew what I was on about.’

‘The baby was coloured,’ Lawrie told them, his eyes trained on the floor between his feet, his chest growing tight as the men fell silent. Without looking he could feel their eyes, all of them staring at him.

‘They tell you that?’ Johnny finally broke the tension.

‘They wouldn’t answer a single question I asked them,’ Al said, sounding put out. ‘Why they tell you?’

Lawrie reached over and poured himself another measure of whisky. ‘They didn’t tell me; I saw her,’ he said quietly. ‘I was the person who found her in that pond.’

Johnny whistled, its arc descending; Moses’s mouth fell open.

‘They took me to the police station for questioning but they let me go,’ he said, the words tumbling out now. ‘It was a woman walking her dog who saw her first. She come running and I didn’t realise what she’d seen until I was almost in the pond myself.’

‘Just as well there was a witness,’ Al said, laying a hand on Lawrie’s shoulder. ‘Else I reckon they’d have questioned you a damn sight longer. Way that copper spoke to me, I started to wonder if I did it after all, in a moment of madness, and I just forgot.’

‘They think one of us did it though,’ Moses pointed out. ‘You think we know who did it? Could be someone we’re acquainted with.’

It was a sobering thought. The baby had to have at least one black parent and there were only so many black people around, most of them men. Lawrie only knew a few women whose skin was dark enough: Evie; Ursula Sands; another woman whose name he couldn’t remember but had travelled over on the boat with them and now lived at the far end of Somerleyton Road. More were starting to turn up each month, their husbands saving up enough to bring them over, but, barring the birth of Johnny’s youngest, he couldn’t think of anyone else who’d had a baby in England yet. It was as if this child, Ophelia, had been spirited to Clapham Common from somewhere else entirely.

Johnny made a show of checking his watch and stood, signalling that it was time to go even though Lawrie could see from the wall clock that they still had ten minutes. ‘Come on, fellas. For now, we got to trust the police will catch the real culprit. We all are sensible upright citizens after all. None of we got anything to do with this.’

They followed their leader onstage, Lawrie feeling temporarily soothed but he wasn’t sure if it was the effect of the whisky or the new knowledge that he wasn’t alone. If the police were questioning everyone then it meant that they hadn’t singled him out. He’d begun to wonder if Rathbone had only been biding his time, searching for scraps that could be woven into a chain to trap Lawrie. He knew there were people out there who’d be happy to help; at least one person, who he’d not seen or spoken to in months but who had every right to bear a grudge.

He shook off those dark thoughts, closing his mind to them, and it was just the usual adrenaline that kicked in as he reached his spot on the stage, sliding his feet along the solid wood until he found a comfortable stance. The nerves would pass soon enough, but those moments before they started playing, before the music took over, always made him feel like one of the tigers at London Zoo. He’d gone there with Evie the previous autumn. She had leaned against the railing and stared in awe at the big cats, lounging lazily in their compound, but all he could think was how sad they looked, these magnificent beasts now tamed and cowed by their conquerors. If anyone could understand the tigers it was him, trapped in a foreign land and reduced to parading himself before a paying audience. But then he’d raise his clarinet, the reed rough against his lips, and feel like a king.

They warmed up the crowd with a little calypso, Johnny strumming a Lord Kitchener tune on his guitar before segueing into swing for the mainly white audience. The night had barely started but the place was already half full. The men had all slicked their hair back with pomade, the humid air heavy with the scent of Brylcreem. The girls were dolled up in their best dresses, coiffed and coy, every one of them with an eye on the entrance, watching for the next eligible gent. He couldn’t see Evie but she’d be there somewhere, trawling the dancefloor as she’d said to him, trying to find Delia a lad to dance with so that she could abandon her friend for Lawrie later on. Aston would be sticking close to the bar, ready to fritter away his money on the first pretty girl who dared to dance with a coloured man; the sort of modern woman who had their own place, or shared with girls who wouldn’t judge them for bringing home a man who they’d likely never see again.

It surprised Lawrie how many of these women existed in London. Back home such behaviour was unthinkable. An unmarried girl who spent the night with a fella back in Kingston would be ruined. Here it seemed like a badge of honour. What the men could do, the women could do just as well.

For the first time in a long time he found himself thinking of Rose. Maybe it was the opening bars of ‘In the Mood’, a song they hadn’t touched in almost a year, after Sonny protested that he was hearing it in his dreams. It was a guaranteed crowd pleaser and Rose had been humming it that first day as he’d inched his way down that hated spiral staircase into the deep level shelter beneath Clapham Common.

He’d played those notes a thousand times or more, and his fingers moved of their own accord as his mind slipped back into the past. Rose Armstrong. She had looked so respectable, dressed neatly in her WVS uniform, the ring finger on her left hand banded in gold. Lawrie had admired her at first; had even been grateful for her help. He’d thought she was a friend.

That had been his first mistake.

1948

Evie watched them from across the street, concealing herself amongst the steady flow of commuters who rushed in and out of Clapham South tube station. The newcomers emerged, blinking into the bright sunshine, through a secret door that she’d never noticed before, hidden in plain sight. She’d only seen men so far, which was disappointing; she’d hoped for a girl, someone her own age who might need help settling in. Someone who would be grateful to learn how things worked in London, who might become a friend. Ma had told her that they’d have a shock in store, these newcomers who had travelled from so far away, that they would take a while to get used to the city. Maybe that was why Evie’s father had left, unable to settle in and think of London as home. Ma said there was no point talking about him since Evie would never meet him; he didn’t even know that Evie existed.

When she’d been younger, Evie had hoped he would come back to London, that one day there would be a knock on the door and he would be standing there with his suitcase and a brilliant white smile. When Ma punished her, often for something as slight as spilling a drink or grazing her knee in the school playground, banishing her to her bedroom to think on her mistakes, Evie made up stories about him. In her daydreams, her father was an African king and Ma was a wicked witch who had stolen Evie away from his kingdom. He had spent years searching for her and when he found her they would go back to his palace and she would eat all the food she wanted, wear only new dresses and all the people of the land would envy her.

These days she knew better. She would never meet him and that was for the best. Too much time had passed and she’d be embarrassed for him to see them now, her and Ma. He was clever, she knew that much. He’d been over on a mathematics scholarship from Sierra Leone according to Aunt Gertie who sometimes let go of tiny fragments of information after a third gin. No doubt he had made his fortune by now. An impressive man who would be disappointed to find his daughter with aspirations no higher than to become a qualified secretary; her mother a charlady who took in piecework to pay the bills.

A couple of large army tents had been set up on the grass close to the shelter entrance and a Union Jack had been raised to make it clear that this was an official operation. Government sanctioned. They weren’t expecting trouble but Ma had told her to stay away just in case. She thought that Evie had gone to the pictures with Delia, a thrilling lie that had been stammered out over breakfast. Delia had been kept home from college for the last two days with a stomach virus so there was no risk of her running into Ma by accident. Anyway, how could she stay away? She didn’t know anybody who looked like her and now here were a whole group of people whose skin was even darker than hers. An entire ship full of them!

She watched on but still she could see only men. Evie bit her lip, not sure what to do. Men have needs, Ma said. Evie had to be wary of being left alone with a man, even though she wasn’t quite certain what would happen if she was. What would she say to a strange man from another country anyway? She had no idea, but she didn’t want to walk away. Instead, she made a bet with herself. She’d walk up to the next female volunteer who came out. She could pretend that she had some questions about the WVS. She was sixteen now, old enough to join if she wanted.

She crossed her fingers and almost immediately a woman did appear. She wore the usual WVS uniform but this woman made it look glamorous, the lines fitting her body as if it had been tailored. Her hair was immaculately coiffed in neat red waves that sat below her standard issue hat. She led out her charges confidently, six men whose laughter floated out to Evie on the breeze. They all wore jackets despite the fine June day, the temperature having risen to well over seventy. One of them threw a ball into the air, casually, spinning it higher each time it left his hands. The jackets came off and were set down as markers to form a playing area. Evie found herself walking across the road before she knew she’d taken a step, like Karen in The Red Shoes, though her plain brown lace-ups were anything but fit for a princess.