Free Heartland by Anthony Cartwright Page A

in a café in Highbury in among road workers in luminous jackets, people in suits shuffling papers and talking too loudly, a young mother trying to manoeuvre a pushchair. People lived on top of each other here. He could see a corner of one of the stands at the Arsenal ground through the window. The sun shone in across Zubair’s coffee and scrambled eggs. The world seemedsuddenly more intense and fragile than he could ever have imagined. He thought he might cry.
    Zubair had been around, and prided himself in fact on a cynicism that was beyond his twenty-four years. It was turning him into a good solicitor, and this in turn was feeding his cynicism. Every day he sat with kids who’d stolen cars, climbed down through warehouse skylights, cut somebody for looking at them the wrong way, and he had to think of ways to keep them out of serious trouble. That morning, in London, he was conscious of how little he knew about anything.
    He rode buses back and forth across the city. The bus from Highbury struggled up the hill like an arthritic old woman and on the downhill felt like it might not stop at all. Out the window, a hotchpotch: crumbling terraces, blocks of flats, grand villas, massage parlours, delicatessens, a Turkish restaurant, a Georgian restaurant, an Ethiopian restaurant, the Inns of Court, Oxford Street, Knightsbridge; it was a ride that became increasingly outlandish. How would you find someone in this labyrinth? How would you begin to look? He stared out of the bus window, thinking about Adnan, about what might have happened – dead in the river, wandering around London like the vagrant he’d seen that morning, amnesia from a bang on the head, mixed up in something dodgy, run away to get married, run away with a man, run away, run away – something had to fill a vacuum; stories would fill the space he’d left. Zubair had to admit there was a certain temptation to let yourself be swallowed. If everything could be so suspect, all certainties and identities so fragile, where did that leave you, where did that leave everything?
    The same ball again. Walter Samuel hit it diagonally, in the air into the gap behind Cole again. There were groans. Rob took a gulp of his pint. His old man shuffled on hisseat, leaned back. Tode yer, he said, thass the ball. The beer made Rob feel cold.
    In the game against the mosque, Carl Jones took a throw. Rob dropped off, like he’d done thousands of times before, nodded and blinked at Carl, palms out. He had to take two more strides, say, Yes, Carl, before he got it. He wanted to take a touch, look up, hit a ball towards Glenn’s run, but Carl was too slow, and he just had to knock the ball back, one touch, instep, towards Carl – and Tayub was across him, nipped in, out for another throw, a flash of Tayub’s red boots, young and quick. Young and quick, young and quick, rattled around Rob’s head. He told Carl to put the throw down the line next time.
    Yow’ve bin smoking in here again.
    I ay.
    Jim, yow have. Why dyer lie to me? Havin all the winders open ay gonna tek the smell away just like that, yer know. Iss a nice day an all. If yer must have one, have one out the back. I thought yer was out canvassing, any road. Thought that was the point of having these days off.
    No leaflets, nobody to help with the loudspeaker till tonight.
    Well, that was a waste of time, then. Dyer want a sandwich? I’ve onny got half hour. I’ve gorra two o’clock appointment.
    Pauline pulled open the cupboard with a sense of purpose. Yer should o bin dahn the salon. I’ve had some o the women from dahn the old people’s flats in wi me. They’ve med me head goo rahnd. If I’d known yow was sittin here I’d a phoned an yow coulda done a surgery. Talk abaht moan.
    They’m all bloody Tories, any road, Jim said.
    Tories? Fascists, I think. Ooh, they think there’s a bunch o terrorists plotting out the front o the flats, cos