‘No worries. I’ll take it back. I’d leave it here, but I need a signature. Sorry.’ A clipboard was waved at the fish-lens, the man’s shoulders shrugging.
The baleful geriatric eye was pressed to the glass. Marmalade-jar man seemed cheerful enough, was wearing overalls and an identity badge. Fairly pointless exercise – the photograph could have been anyone, could have been in negative – but was reassuring enough. Perhaps the package was from the neighbours again, a thank you for tolerating the building dust and noise. No hard feelings. ‘What ’ave you got there?’
‘Dunno. S’heavy.’
‘Speak up.’
‘I said, s’heavy. You ordered from catalogue?’
‘Nope. Where’s it from?’
‘There’s writing … Look mister, I’m going. They’ll charge you for a second delivery. Okay?’
‘Wait there.’ Exasperation filtered through the door, irritability showing in the rattle of locks and the unhooking of a chain.
Ready to receive. The eighty-six-year-old blinked nervously, suddenly feeling agoraphobic and exposed in the open doorway. He should not have acted so hastily. But he could not afford to send the man away, could not afford the possible cost of his return. Besides, it was a special delivery.
Special, and certainly unexpected. The mail man stood before him, the box flap hanging down, the interior visible. It was empty, save for the pistol held in a steady hand and pointed at his chest.
‘I told you it was heavy, man.’
* * *
Things were fine, conversation and alcohol flowing easily, the skiing, shooting, hunting and friends-in-common boxes ticked off as social waypoints to freestyle bonhomie. They had all admired the new extension and kitchen units, discussed their children’s schooling, told horror stories of nannies and Czech au pairs, moaned about mortgages and how holidays in Rock weren’t what they used to be. Hugh had opened the French windows into the small garden to allow air to circulate and the smoking die-hards-die-young to dive out for a swift puff between courses.
‘Every time I pass those school gates with Freddie, he picks up another disgusting word,’ Sophie opined.
‘It’s those black children,’ Pippa – friend and parent-ally – added. ‘I see their mothers drop them off. They’re always late. None of them give a damn.’
‘It’s hardly surprising they’ve got attitude problems.’.
‘Hardly surprising they grow up unemployed.’
‘And we’re the ones who have to subsidize them.’
Hugh swallowed a mouthful of lemon and damson ice-cream. ‘A chip the size of bloody Africa on their shoulders, if you ask me.’
‘We’re just so lucky we got Freddie into the other one.’
‘We did school jumble sales, baked cakes for them, took part in parent quiz nights, for a year to get our two accepted from the nursery.’
‘We’d have left town if we’d failed.’
‘Or educated them at home.’
By common consent, the transgression of unspoken, unwritten rules of segregation would constitute a serious misdemeanour, a cause for shame and ongoing heartache within their social milieu. It was bad enough turning to the state to provide early education, but a worthwhile sacrifice in view of the savings to be gained and the larger sacrifice of private school fees later on. Accepting places at the lesser of the two available local primaries – the greatest of all possible evils – was simply not a consideration. Their offspring would stick with their own kind, learn with their own kind, play with their own kind. The other end of the street was the other side of the tracks, a different universe, where blacks spoke patois, whites smoked rolls-ups, and pregnant mothers with hard faces, dead eyes and grubby children called Wayne and Dwayne, lounged and swore and spat insults at the teaching staff. No, it was not for those gathered round the table. Their little ones – their little worlds – were bright and white. It was the way things were, were meant to be. Conversation continued around the same axis.
‘They commit most of the robberies, they introduced gun-culture to London …’
‘And they breed like termites.’
‘We’re supposed to be grateful.’
‘Grateful, my arse.’
‘Won’t be a white face left in a few years. We’ll be like Washington DC.’
‘More violent probably.’
Consensus was that they would finish up living in gated communities, corralled in upmarket sanctums replete with private security guards; consensus was, the situation was out of hand, beyond a joke or explanation.
‘Jesus, if they’re not whingeing, they’re rioting. Look at what happened on that estate.’
Hugh was nodding sagely. ‘As I said – chippy. They think they’ve a God-given mandate to loot every time they feel hard done by.’
‘We’re the real victims.’
‘Just be thankful you haven’t got them on your doorstep for the Notting Hill Carnival. We do. We’re prisoners.’ Jennifer was quite drunk, flushed, mildly animated.
Her husband, Simon, slapped the table. ‘Anyone else, they’d be banned.’
‘Or moved.’ Sophie hoped the couple would not be driving.
‘Five of them – all school-age – trashed Mrs Patel’s shop last week. She’s a wreck. And the police don’t do anything.’
‘Can’t do anything.’
‘I tell you, if I were a Timelord, I’d travel back and torpedo the Empress Windrush before it ever docked at Southampton and offloaded the first batch.’
