London Belongs to Us Read online

  Jean-Luc and Vic are nose to nose and arguing in French again. ‘No! They’re just helping me find him. They’re friends with my mum.’ How pathetic! To talk about parents to someone as awesome as Audrey. She’d probably arrived on earth after hitching a ride on a shooting star.

  ‘Urgh! I would never let my mum choose my friends. She’d want me to hang out with born-again Christians who are really into singing madrigals.’ Audrey tosses a couple of stray red curls over her shoulder. ‘What are you doing with that broom?’

  I look at the broom still clutched in my hand. It’s not even a cool, old-skool wooden broom. ‘Oh well, I had this barbecue and some of my friends got drunk and set our broom on fire so one of them bought me a new one. Well, see, my mum’s coming back from her holiday tomorrow and she’ll be all like, “What happened to the broom?” so, y’know, new broom.’

  Audrey shakes her head like she doesn’t even have words for how dull my story and my life are. ‘Now, about this boyfriend.’

  I try to keep it brief. Stick to the point. Because, Vic notwithstanding, I can’t believe that Audrey is the kind of girl who would ever let a boy even think about kissing another girl. Not that Mark thought much about it. According to him, it just happened all sudden-like.

  I don’t keep it brief. It all comes streaming out in a messy gush of words and I end up showing her Mark’s latest text as I try to explain that: ‘I thought we were cool, that it was all sorted out, but now every time we make an arrangement, he goes off with his friends and I don’t even know if that girl is still hanging around. He’s being elusive. Why would he be elusive if he had nothing to hide?’

  ‘Darling, I hate to break it to you but he sounds like a dick,’ Audrey tells me kindly. ‘And he said he was inside? In my club?’

  I nod and show Audrey a photo of Mark. Not the photos. I can’t bear to look at them again. ‘Do you recognise him? He must have got into the club about half an hour ago. Said he was on the guest list, but the list closes after eleven.’

  Audrey perfectly arches one already perfectly arched eyebrow. ‘Firstly, I’m in charge of the guest list and I don’t put random people on it. Secondly, what would be the point of a guest list that closes at eleven? Nothing fun ever happens before one in the morning at the earliest. And thirdly, does he always wear his jeans like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like some sad R&B singer from ten years ago,’ comes Audrey’s crushing reply. ‘So everyone can see his pants. I would never let him into my club. Never.’

  ‘What if he’d pulled his jeans up so you couldn’t see his pants?’

  ‘I never forget a face. Honestly, Scotland Yard should use my services. Oh, sweetie, cheer up!’ I can feel my face drooping, smile turning upside down. ‘London’s tiny. It is. You’ll find him. Though I’m not sure why you’d want to.’

  When she puts it like that, neither do I. Mark should have been waiting for me, with chocolates and a bunch of over-priced flowers bought from a garage. He shouldn’t expect me to run myself ragged trying to catch up with him.

  ‘He is being a bit of a dick, isn’t he?’ I’m not even admitting it to Audrey but to myself. I feel my heart, shoulders and smile sink.

  Audrey sighs. ‘I hope, really hope, you are going to make his sorry arse beg for forgiveness.’ She peers at my face. ‘No. Maybe you’re not there yet.’ She sighs again and pulls out her phone, which has been nestling in her cleavage all this time. ‘Text me that photo, then I’ll send it out to every door girl I know. I’ll text you back with any leads.’

  ‘That’s so kind of you. If there’s anything I can do to …’

  ‘Well, if you’re hanging out with Mr ‘I’m Going to Murmur Things in French’, maybe you could slip some laxatives into his drink when he’s not looking. Or push him into the path of a bus. Something like that. I’m not fussy.’

  ‘Oh, why are we waiting? Why are we waiting? Why are we waiting?’

  The queue is getting impatient.

  ‘I’d better get on. The natives are restless.’ Audrey put her hands on her hips. ‘I can’t let anyone else in until people come out! It’s against health and safety.’

  The crowd jeers its disapproval. Audrey claps her hands to shut them up. ‘I can also ban the whole lot of you for life. I have that power! Don’t make me wield it,’ she shouts as I head back to Vic and Jean-Luc who have stopped arguing and jostling but have turned their backs on each other.

  ‘I refuse to speak to him,’ Jean-Luc announces. ‘Not until he apologises for his deplorable behaviour.’ It’s like he learned to speak English with the help of a textbook written in Victorian times.

  All three of us are at a dead end. Mark’s trail has gone cold. He’s lied about where he is and what he’s doing and I haven’t even started processing this new hurt and Jean-Luc says that he’s almost out of petrol.

  ‘Let’s go back to ours,’ Vic says.

  ‘Maybe I should just go home.’ The urge to eat ice cream and cry on Gretchen Weiner is back, stronger than ever. ‘Yeah, I should really go home.’

  ‘No, you come to our unit,’ Jean-Luc says in a firm voice, steering me to his scooter with an even firmer hand. ‘Then I shall drive you home in the van.’

  It occurs to me that I know hardly anything about Vic or Jean-Luc. Yes, they are charming and French but they could be charming and French murderers and I really don’t fancy being murdered. Then again, I really don’t fancy finding my own way home either, so I let myself be steered.

  We get back on the scooters and ride up Kingsland Road, then down another tiny alley, which opens up into a small courtyard.

  It’s the other side of London, where the shadows live; not as pretty as the other bits. Not as exciting. Here the backs of buildings loom, jutting out at odd angles and studded with rickety fire escapes and huge ventilation units. There are two guys in grubby chef whites smoking by an open door. I hope they wash their hands before they go back to work.

  ‘This is us,’ Vic says and points to a metal door with ‘KIM IS A SLAG’ painted on it in crude white letters. It opens up to reveal a small but surprisingly pristine kitchen where I suppose they make their legendary tartlets. There’s a little lock-up to the side too where they stash their mopeds while I pull out my phone charger from my bag, plug it into the nearest socket and take great whiffs of the air. It smells of sugar and chocolate, with just the faintest hint of cheese and coffee.

  I realise I’m quite hungry and I perk up when Vic opens a huge, old-fashioned fridge, which makes a strange stuttering sound as it hums along as if one more pint of milk or packet of butter placed inside might finish it off all together.

  He pulls out a plastic tub, takes off the lid and waves it temptingly in front of me. ‘Mini quiche?’

  Terry always says that real men don’t eat quiche, but I’m not a man so I take one. Then I take another. And one more, because Vic keeps holding out the tub. I think he knows he’s been a very, very bad man what with the whole Audrey business and impersonating Jean-Luc, because he doesn’t say anything but starts making coffee while Jean-Luc fusses with his hair in the mirror over the sink.

  It’s all become quite awkward. What with the two of them not talking and me not knowing them well enough to make them hug it out.

  Then my phone beeps and I get that now familiar panicky, pukey feeling that it might be Mark, but it’s Emmeline.

  U alrite? Did u dump Mark? Not sure ur at home. Am on nightbus. Going 2 club in town. Call me if u want. Hugs, Em xxx

  I so want. I so do.

  ‘Sunny! Are you all right? How much ice cream have you eaten?’

  I jump down from my stool, take the tiny, teeny cup of espresso Vic offers me and wander out into the yard. ‘I’m not at home! I’ve been trying to find Mark.’

  ‘Oh, have you?’ Emmeline sounds like it’s taking all her powers of restraint not to shout at me. ‘Please tell me it’s so you can kick his arse.’

  ‘Hmm, not exactly. It’s not as bla
ck and white as that.’ There’s nothing for it but to sing her my sad song about my futile odyssey around North and East London for a boyfriend who slips from my fingers each time he’s almost within my grasp.

  ‘God, where does he get off screwing you around?’ Emmeline shouts at one point, but mostly she manages to stay quiet until I come to the end. ‘He kissed another girl. I saw the photos! She’s kissing him and he’s kissing her right back, and then he has the nerve to play you. Not cool, Sunny. Not cool.’

  ‘I know, but he explained about all that and I’d have been fine with it, mostly, except now with him disappearing on me, I’m not fine. I think I’m actually starting to get quite cross.’

  ‘I can’t bear to talk about Mark for even a second longer,’ Emmeline groans. ‘Let’s skip to the part where you’ve been hanging out with the Godards, shall we? So, what are they like? Are they nice or are they really up themselves? They look like they’d be up themselves. Arty boys usually are.’

  ‘I thought you were gay,’ I say to her. ‘Why do you care?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the male form on an aesthetic level. Plus, Lucy says they’re funny. But she’s not sure if they actually mean to be funny. Anyway, like, now that you’ve experienced them close up, what would –’

  ‘What about Mark? What should I do now? Go home or …’

  ‘Well, if you’re up, miles from home and drinking coffee, come clubbing with us, or else you could wait for a lead and then track Mark down but only if you promise me that you’re actually going to stand up to him and … What’s that?’ I hear Emmeline say to someone, then a lot of excited squeals. ‘Hey, Sunny, so, like, I’m going to put you on speakerphone … Now, how tall would you say the Godards are?’

  I hear a general rumble of amusement in the background from whomever Emmeline’s with. It sounds like the whole of the London roller girl squad. ‘Well, I’m five seven and I’ve got to look up, if you know what I mean, but it’s not about how tall they are.’ I grin. I can’t help it. I know what it’s like to have a crush on a boy. To see him and immediately a grey, blah kind of day transforms into an amazing day bursting with possibility, the kind of day where anything could happen. To memorise every one of his smiles and replay them on long bus journeys or when you’re in bed and drifting off to sleep, wondering if he had a smile that you hadn’t seen yet, one that would be yours and yours alone.

  God, I’d spent so long with that calibre of crush on Mark until he took me out of my daydreams and made them real. Like, my first day back at school after I’d had the norovirus. I’d still been feeling like I might throw up if I went within five hundred metres of the dining hall and caught a whiff of institutional mince, so I’d been cowering on a bench next to the playing field.

  Then Mark and Archie had walked past in their footie gear and Mark had smiled at me. ‘You all right, Sunny?’ he’d asked and he’d carried on walking, not even waiting for my reply, but that smile, his noticing me, had felt like a jolt of adrenalin straight to the heart and suddenly I’d felt as if I could have run a marathon.

  Maybe the reality never lived up to the feelings. Oh, those wonderful, tummy-flipping feelings …

  ‘Sunny? You still there? What do you mean when you say it’s not about how tall they are?’ Emmeline asks. ‘What is it about then?’

  I shove all thoughts of Mark away and I grin again. ‘It’s about how lean they are, how messy their hair is, how French they might be.’

  I wasn’t crushing on either of them. Not when I was hoping that I still had a boyfriend. Anyway, memorising their smiles was as pointless as wishing on the moon. It wasn’t just Vic who was out of my league, Jean-Luc was too. They were in a league populated by girls who looked like Audrey, who wore slinky dresses and high heels and danced like nobody was watching when actually everybody was watching because they were beautiful, free spirits. Girls like that.

  I could never be a girl like that. Not sure I would want to be either. It seems like a lot of pressure, plus I can’t walk in heels.

  ‘So they are French, then?’ Someone who isn’t Emmeline wants to know.

  ‘Technically. Well, Jean-Luc is. He only came to London last year. Vic says he’s French too, but he’s lived in London for ages so I think he’s had to give back his official Frenchness certificate or something.’

  ‘It sounds like you’re having all the fun,’ Emmeline says as I hear a noise behind me, and standing in the doorway of their little lock-up kitchen are both Vic and Jean-Luc, each holding a tiny espresso cup, their faces in shadow so it’s impossible to know how long they’ve been standing there listening to me speculate on their Frenchness and, oh God, their leanness and … ‘You all right, Sunny? You just moaned like you’re in pain.’

  ‘No, I’m good,’ I mumble and my skin is so hot with shame that it’s a wonder that I don’t spontaneously combust. ‘I wouldn’t say I was having all the fun. Still can’t find Mark, can I?’

  ‘If you’re round that way, maybe try the convenience store on Kingsland Road that has the raves,’ the someone who isn’t Emmeline says. Whoever they are, they’re being very helpful. ‘Every time I end up in there, I always bump into everyone I’ve ever known in my life, ever.’

  ‘OK, I’ll try that. What bit of Kingsland Road ‘cause it’s a pretty long road, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, you can’t miss it.’ Which actually wasn’t that helpful at all.

  ‘I’ll text you when we get into town, which might be quite some time ’cause this nightbus is moving slower than the Ice Age,’ Emmeline says.

  I kind of want to stay on the phone for ever, which is ridiculous. But Emmeline hangs up and now I should walk over to Jean-Luc and Vic with my face still on fire.

  I decide to stay where I am, so they’re in shadow and I don’t have to see them looking pissed off about me dissing their Frenchness, or worse – looking all arch and knowing and thinking that I fancy them.

  I wave my espresso cup, then place it carefully down on the ground. ‘Well, thanks for everything. I’m going to head off. Not actually going home now. There’s a rave in a convenience store on the Kingsland Road. Maybe Mark’s there. So, anyway, see you around, yeah?’

  It was far better to face the collective wrath of the garçons Godard than walk down the Kingsland Road on my own, but I was making all sorts of bad decisions tonight and one more wouldn’t make much difference.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ Vic says, but I’m walking away – well, scurrying, if I’m being honest. I hear the sound of the big metal door of their unit closing, then I feel something bristly poke me between the shoulder blades.

  ‘You forgot your broom,’ Jean-Luc tells me. ‘And your phone charger.’

  ‘Don’t you have something you’d rather be doing?’ I ask, though I’m kind of relieved that I’m not on my own. ‘I mean, it’s Saturday night.’

  ‘Saturday night is the new Sunday night,’ Vic says and I don’t even know what that means. ‘I’ve never raved in a convenience store before and I like to try everything once. At least once. I mean, the night is young. We’re young …’

  ‘You’re not that young,’ Jean-Luc says. ‘Sunny and I are younger. Much younger.’

  ‘I’m twenty-one. That’s young!’

  ‘And I’m nineteen. I’ll always be younger than you, old man,’ Jean-Luc drawls.

  ‘Yeah, says the boy who made me leave the picnic early because he wanted to come home and experiment with a new tartlet recipe involving chestnut paste. You’re like a middle-aged housewife trapped in the body of a nineteen-year-old boy.’

  ‘You’re like an idiot trapped in the body of an idiot.’

  They were arguing again, jostling again, and I have to tell them sharply to, ‘Shut up and behave yourselves or I’m leaving you behind!’

  I’ve never said anything that sharply before. It’s like a huge leap for Sunkind. And it works. Vic and Jean-Luc stop arguing and we start walking.

  THE HOT WING RAP

&nbs
p; Written by Sunshine Williams and Emmeline Sweet

  We need chicken

  We need hot sauce

  What we need

  Ain’t written in Morse (code)

  Yo!

  We like ’em spicy

  We like ’em sticky

  We eat so much

  But we never get sicky

  Yo!

  Hot wings are neat

  Hot wings are sweet

  They give you a rush

  That can’t be beat

  We love ’em eat-in

  We love ’em on the go

  We love ’em supersized

  With fries on the side

  Yo!

  We got no time for breast or thigh

  We ain’t bothered about waiting in line

  Got to get our fix or we will scream

  Mouth on fire, we’re living the dream

  Yo!

  Hot wings are neat

  Hot wings are sweet

  They give you a rush

  That can’t be beat

  Hot wings! Hot wings! Hot wings!

  (Repeat to fade)

  MIDNIGHT

  DALSTON

  Dalston, in the London Borough of Hackney, takes its name from Deorlaf’s tun, tun being a really, really olde English word for farm and Deorlaf being a name that never really caught on.

  In around 1280, a leper colony was established in Dalston because it was out in the sticks, but by the eighteenth century it was a bustling suburban village. In 1880, the famous Ridley Road market started, which some say was the inspiration for the one in Albert Square in EastEnders some one hundred years later.

  In 2009, the Guardian decreed that Dalston was the coolest place to live in England but by 2011 Dalston was no longer cool, largely because Britney Spears filmed the video for her single ‘Criminal’ there.

  We turn the corner into Kingsland Road. It’s a very, very long road that stretches from Hoxton, which is cool and hipstery and full of trendy bars and art galleries and raw food cafes that serve disgusting brightly coloured gloop made from locally sourced vegetables and seeds in jam jars, right up to Stoke Newington. Stoke Newington is full of middle-aged people who used to be cool and hipster-y and they think they still are, but they’re totally not, even if they drink soy lattes in twee cafes strung with bunting and wear Ramones T-shirts.