Our Story
Jack Daniels beat his fists violently against my tender brain. Of late, this had become an all too regular method of daybreak alarm. I swallowed hard and licked my lips to a familiar unwelcome taste. The insides of a dog owner's vacuum cleaner would taste similar, I was sure of it. Guilt, desire for punishment made me swallow - again, suffer that taste - again. Like picking at a scab I know will cause me discomfort – subconsciously I craved that pain.
My eyes tried their damnedest to focus on her mass of dark curls. Her frizz, that's what she called it. The exercise proved futile, my world was a blur. From times when I'd enjoyed fuller faculties, I knew her image well, one of unblemished perfected precision.
A brief moment claimed my limbs were not my own, the effort of concentration pained me as I struggled to claim them back.
My company slept, her back turned to me. Her body curled as a foetus within a womb. Her naked shoulders told of her attire. I knew her face and every inch of her body, and that she was a princess, fated to be, my princess.
Every night since tragedy had called and taken my beloved wife, Laura had come to lay with me in my bed. The realisation, or maybe the embarrassment that I was a man of forty-odd years, and she had barely turned sixteen, prevented me from reaching out to her. It struck me, this circumstance didn't look good. Some would say, inappropriate. Even though I'd grown to love her, more with each passing day, she could not keep coming to my bed at night.
"1980 was the year God made me!" she used to say. Then that smile, and a flash of those pretty brown eyes brimming with the vitality of youth, and the warmth of love. The departed smile had not been seen for six days, not since the tragedy of her mother being killed, and the eyes were now dark and dead.
In truth, Laura had not been born until the late summer of 1981.
"It wasn't God that made her, 'twas a little too much Christmas spirit caused the turkey to get wasted, basted and stuffed, unprepared. - That's my story and I'm sticking to it. " Her mother told me the tale, once. I fondly remember those eyes and the joy gifted by her smile.
I'd speak with Laura later. Get our situation straightened out. I was late for work. The square bottle on my bedside table stood proudly next to my mobile phone. Together they called to me. Take a drink, then ring them; tell them that you're still sick.
I turned my head away hoping out of sight would mean out of mind. Too fast. I waited for the pain to rest from its moment of anger. I licked my lips again as I contemplated taking a swig of liquor to change the taste in my mouth, and to subdue the throbbing of my tender brain.
"Do you have to go in today?" The intervention by her voice distracted me from the call of evil. She swivelled round and hugged my arm as I pulled away my corner of the duvet.
"I must, I'm due an appearance. I said I'd go in today. My children will be missing me. "
Perhaps I could have chosen the words more carefully. Perhaps I was a little insensitive.
She didn't seem to notice or care. Her eyes remained closed.
Laura, the last princess, lay still, a perfect picture of peace as the natural light bathed her face. The image was false, a lie. The sunlight pierced the blinds and coloured her brown skin to a rich henna, causing it to glow. One would have assumed the bright summer sun brought warmth to the day. But outside the roof-tops were white with hard frost against which the sun was powerless. Another false image, another lie. As is often the case, all things are not as they seem.
Ironically, today I was supposed to teach history to London's future menaces to society. And next to me lay a victim of the very subject. Laura lost her grandfather in the first Great War, and her father, missing in action during the second. History, where exactly does history begin? The Romans may have built the roads but the Irish were awarded the more lucrative maintenance and expansion contracts. The Battle of Hastings? The very mention of a man named Norman fighting at the seaside would send these children into fits of laughter. Why is history famed for war and battles? What is to celebrate? I must respect the child in my bed currently suffering loss. Nevertheless, history is marked by loss or gain. So yes, the curriculum I teach must start with the Great War. A point in time where people still exist in the chain of memory of those still here, living.
Twenty-three years passed between the battles claiming Laura's ancestors. Two wars, two battles changing evidence of self into mere rumour. Her grandfather died defending the hill and the surrounding groves. The enemy fought to maintain the purity of a race they believed superior. Laura's forefathers defended their right to walk free; to exist on the land they called their home. They battled the KBW on the streets of the hill where her grandfather fell in 1958.
They had been pinned down for weeks. There were no re-enforcements to hope for, no cavalry to save the day. No United Nations to keep the peace.
The armies donned their uniforms, the KBW dressed as Teddy boys fought the troops of the defence force, the Blackskins. In amongst the defence force, the resistance, sympathisers, disguised as civilians, all in white.
It was on the Saturday the battle commenced. The KBW attacked a Swedish civilian. I cannot say for certain whether they contravened any part of the Geneva Convention. But these were Empire days, and attacking a woman, Mrs Majbritt Morrison, simply wasn't cricket. Downright bad form, outrageous, an outright act of war. The KBW, 400-strong, attacking a married lady with an iron bar - the audacious actions of bullies and cowards.
The W11 battle raged for one whole week with heavy casualties on both sides. The KBW believed their cause right and just. Their leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, had been knighted by the king, and believed he fought rightly to keep Britain white, for the preservation of its crown.
"There ain't no black in the union jack, so why don't you just send them back?" The KBW chanted as they marched on the hill.
When war had been waged and it came to pass that Blackskins may carry out their dead, Laura's grandfather was found fallen in a side-street off the grove; his lifeless body, a casualty of war.
The Blackskins are so different. They mark their first great war with Remembrance Day, an event lasting an entire weekend. There is no moment of silence, or changing of the guard. The parade is a carnival, a weekend of celebration, jubilation and party. The biggest street-party in Europe, over a million guests. There's a sturdy metal embedded within the irony of welcoming the guests of guests unwelcomed. On Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove they dance and celebrate, but what exactly did they win?
This is the urban history I teach; new history, their history. Anyway you put it to the young urbanites, 1066 was fiction before fact, 'he said, she said', in their language. The roots of their history are spread far and wide. Parts long severed have withered and died, and are lost forever. The traditional teachings, to them, were not history; the signing of the Magna Carta was a story, somebody else's story.
I reached for the phone with one hand and absent-mindedly rested the other on her bare shoulder. Her tan silken skin felt soft and smooth to touch. I caught and stopped myself subconsciously allowing my touch to develop into a caress, something I'd not have thought twice about in the past. She covered my hand with hers. I pulled away gently and couldn't help but push her slipped bra-strap back up onto her shoulder.
"I'm still not up to it. I'll come in on Monday." I spoke into my phone. My voice, croaked, theatrically weak.
"Take all the time you need." The sullen closing statement of the voice on the end of the phone.
Laura opened her eyes momentarily and I felt a twitch of a squeeze against my hand. In that moment, I thought I saw it. A subliminal message transmitted through an undetectable smile. Thank you. She changed her position, exposing a long slender limb. And then came the entrancing waft. Regrettably, I savoured the smell of a woman before heading to the shower in a shroud of guilt.
Feeling shameful and weak. I leaned against the washbasin, closing my eyes in an effort to hide from my guilt, whilst seeking solace in the gentle roar the shower as the water rained down. I opened my eyes. The large floor-standing house-plants were barely visible through the steamy mist filling the bathroom. My mind ran far away, the Amazon, a place to take my shame and hide, but it was never far enough. They were my wife's plants, Sarah's, she loved them as I did, and still do love her. The bathroom suite was white, she insisted on white. There was something special about her and white. I remembered our wedding day.
My hand grazed the tiled sill, knocking a plastic bottle to the floor. Cocoa-butter hand-cream, Sarah's. Everything on the sill was fucking Sarah's. In a flash of temper I swept the entire compliment of toiletries and cosmetics off the shelf. They crashed to the floor. I hung my head and breathed a while. So much pain and guilt brought on by the smell of another woman. A woman I had no business to smell. I refused to let the scent of my wife, in her home, be replaced by the scent of another woman, this new woman. Two women, the same perfume, yet yielding detectably different fragrances?
It is the third law. Where there is loss, there must be gain. It is a cliché, where there is war there must be spoils.
In the second Great War, Errol, was a loser, as was Laura, she lost her father. A lesson to be taken from history; that other fictional history. Peasants are revolting. Treat a man like a peasant, he will revolt.
South of the great river Thames, the new generation of Blackskins were being denied the right of free unhindered passage. A free man could not go about his business during this time of occupation. En route from A to B, there was inevitably a request for official papers, followed by a search of your person, sufferance; the inconvenience and embarrassment of being accosted in the street. Failure to comply could result in incarceration in the prison on the hill, the place already a concentration of Blackskins. The Overseers were in control, they had it sussed.
I'd thought about it so many times, overseer, officer, the two words sounded the same. Had the overseer of slaves evolved into an officer of the law? I'd no evidence, but the mob-mentality isn't born of evidence.
Errol Joyce worked as a barman in the pub on Atlantic Rd. At 5.40pm he left his home and pregnant girlfriend. His shift began at 6.00pm. He arrived for duty, unaware the revolution was scheduled for 6.15. Outside, in the streets, one thousand Overseers routinely infringed people's civil rights. It was only a matter of time before a man would say 'no', and others would join the chorus. No matter. The overseers would crush an uprising by the Blackskins. It should have been a no contest but evolution took a hand.
The Overseers of Metropolis came to crush the uprising but could not identify their foe; they were every one, peasants. Every skin united against them, side-by-side, in a royal battle befitting an April weekend. Many good men were slain on both sides, and the south-side's burning buildings lit up the night sky. When the battle was over on Monday, Brixton had two less pubs and one less barman. A body was found charred in a burned-out building. Blackskins have good teeth; most do not visit a dentist. Errol Joyce was declared missing in action. Laura James was born out of wedlock and fatherless, not even having the gift of a name. That was herstory.
Laura was up, the bed empty and made when I returned to my bedroom. I heard the sweet music of her humming in the kitchen. The clinking of cutlery on crockery, ended with the sound of a stainless steel teaspoon crashing into a stainless steel sink.
I dressed and joined her.
"We don't need to resolve this, not right now." She thrust a mug of coffee into my hand.
I savoured the aroma a moment, watching the steam rise from the cup. "I think I've been ducking the issue long enough." I nervously twisted my wedding ring.
"As far as I've been concerned, it's only you that ever mattered." A more earnest expression was never witnessed on a prettier face.
"I know. " I hugged her. We rocked gently. Her perfume took me back to another time.
"I love you," she whispered.
"I love you too," I replied, "and I think we should make it official." Her bathrobe opened as we separated. I quickly pulled it to.
"Are you sure, it's not too soon?" Recognising the displeasure I openly displayed, she hastily secured the towelling belt around her waist.
"Laura, you are a woman now. Not just a woman, the woman of this house. I ask you in these difficult times. In the interim period, whilst we have no paperwork, show a little more decorum."
"You're definitely going to do it then?"
"Yes, my love, this has gone on too long." I stepped back, drew breath, a moment to study her. "How you've grown over the years." I exhaled. "Your mother's gone, we have to accept that. And I know the pain comes in the night but you're too old now to be creeping into our, sorry, my bed."
"I know." She wiped her eyes, before returning to embrace me.
"I know," I echoed, rubbing her back a moment before easing her away. "We'll start it today. "
"Today?"
"We should have sorted this out years ago when your mother and I got married. I'll adopt you. You've always been my little girl. We have history together."
"I love you daddy." Her mother's smile returned to her face, and in that moment I knew, I had reaped the spoils of war.
That is mystory.
I found these cut out of old newspapers. . ..
Notting Hill Riot – Saturday 30th August 1958
"Senior Metropolitan police officers tried to dismiss the Notting Hill race riots which raged for five nights over the August bank holiday in 1958 as the work of"ruffians, both coloured and white" hellbent on hooliganism, according to newly released official files. But police eyewitness reports in the secret papers confirm that they were overwhelmingly the work of a white working class mob out to get the"niggers".
The ferocity of Notting Hill"racial riots" as the press called them at the time, shocked Britain into realising for the first time that it was not above the kind of racial conflict then being played out in the American deep south. "
Brixton Riots, 1981 "These were the first serious riots of the 20th century, and the first entailing substantial destruction of property since the formation of the Metropolitan Police. "
"Over 300 people were injured, 83 premises and 23 vehicles were damaged during the disturbances, at an estimated cost of £7.5m. "
"In 1985 there were further riots in Brixton after an officer accidentally shot and wounded a black woman during a police raid, and again 10 years later when a young black man died in custody."