Good Bait

She still didn’t go, not for the best part of another hour, but then, when there really was nothing more she could do, she decided to take Ramsden at his word.

The kofta was cold; she took one bite and dumped the rest into the bin. The red wine tasted sour. She made herself a cup of weak tea instead, two sugars, and drank it while she got ready for bed. The book she’d been reading was on the floor, a scrap of paper marking her place; she picked it up and began to read.

Black Water Rising: Attica Locke.

Houston, Texas in the late sixties. Revolution in the air. Aretha Franklin singing Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change is Go

Karen could remember, as a young woman, dancing to that slice of seminal James Brown in a way that would have made her poor aunt feel shamed, shaking her hips, hands in the air, singing it loud, how she was black and proud.

Those young people, young men from Tottenham and Wood Green; those like Hector Prince who were ganged up, others like Derroll Palmer, caught between — no danger of them joining the white middle class, getting university degrees. Their choice, she wondered, or somebody else’s? And if so, whose?

Kids like that, Ramsden had said, they take their lives in their hands each time they step out the front door.

And here she was, a black woman who, as one of her sisters had informed her when she was still out patrolling the streets, was wearing the white man’s uniform, enforcing his laws. No answer from Karen, other than to move on, the sister had spat in her face.

Some days, years later, she still reached up a hand to wipe it away.

Only when she could feel her eyes failing did she set the book aside and switch out the light.

19

Carla James had been in Karen’s year at secondary school, a bit of a star even then; the lead in the school production of The Wiz, her picture all over the local paper, Acton’s own Diana Ross. In the sixth form she had hung out with the guys who were forever putting together some band or other, rumours of recording contracts that never quite came off, Carla laying down vocals that somehow got lost in the final mix. Her boyfriend then was an athlete on the fringes of the national team, a sprinter; thigh muscles, Carla told them all proudly, like you wouldn’t believe.

Karen would go with her sometimes, evenings, down to the track to watch him train: stretches, drills, strides; sweat dripping off him beneath the lights, making his body shine.

Honey to the bee.

A levels over, Carla applied to drama school and failed to get in; she got a job in a bar instead, sang back-up for a band that did Motown covers in places like Basingstoke and Stevenage, and took classes, part-time, at the Poor School near King’s Cross — movement and voice, dialect, singing, stage fighting, Shakespeare and contemporary text. At the end of the year, she reapplied and was accepted. All of that more years ago than she cared to remember.

There were still periods when she signed on or worked in bars; in between there was the odd show in Manchester or Liverpool; twelve weeks understudying an all-black production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roofin the West End; bits and pieces of telly — Wire in the Blood, Silent Witness, The Bill— usually, as she put it, standing around on street corners with my skirt up my arse looking for business, waiting for someone to smack me upside the head with a hammer.

Right now she was at the National, Jacobean tragedy, twenty-three performances at the Cottesloe, then out on tour. Carla playing five different roles and loving it.

They met at a place near the theatre, loud music, Mexican food and cocktails, Carla’s voice rising above everything: ‘Karen! Girlfriend! Over here.’ Carla with brightly beaded hair extensions, cleavage to die for, colours that clashed as deliriously as something in a Matisse painting.

After a hug and a kiss and a perfunctory, ‘So, how’s it all going?’, Carla set off, as Karen knew and hoped she would, on a rousing and ribald account of the previous few months of her life that drew applause and laughter from listeners at the surrounding tables.

After a day of no progress whatsoever, other than Hector Prince’s mother, between convulsions of grief and angry tears, identifying her son in the sterile cold of the morgue, Karen hadn’t wanted to spend the evening alone.

‘Don’t turn round now,’ she said, as the waiter delivered a fresh pair of mojitos, ‘but that guy over by the back wall, is he looking at us?’

Carla leaned over and fiddled with the strap of her shoe. ‘Black turtleneck, short hair, that the one?’

Karen nodded.

‘I should hope so.’

‘No, really. I’m serious.’

‘What? You fancy him? Doesn’t look like your type.’

‘No, it’s not …’

‘’Cause I can go over, make an introduction …’

‘No.’ She grabbed hold of Carla’s arm. ‘No, it’s fine. Just jumpy, that’s all.’

‘Okay, okay.’

The next time Karen looked, the man had gone.

‘Bad day, huh?’

‘Bad couple of days.’

‘Want to talk about it?’

Karen shook her head.

They went to a club across the river, just a nightcap, vodka tonics. When someone stumbled over his feet asking her to dance, Carla just laughed. ‘I ought to be heading home,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘Matinee tomorrow.’

They stood on the Embankment, looking out over the river, the slow trail of lights down towards St Paul’s.

Carla lit a cigarette.

‘Let me have one.’

‘I thought you’d given up.’

‘I did.’

Something caught Karen’s eye up on the bridge. The flash of a camera. Tourists capturing the city, the Thames at night.

‘If it was ever really getting to you,’ Carla said, ‘you know, really doing your head in, you’d chuck it all in, right? Step away.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, of course.’

Even as she said it, she wondered if it were true. It was her life, after all. What else could she do? And besides — Make somethin’ of yourself,her father had said. Make a difference if you can. She owed it to him to keep trying.

Five minutes later, she and Carla were in the Underground, different destinations, separate trains. A five-minute walk for Karen from Highbury and Islington, five or six, soft echo of her footsteps along the pavement. Someone, somewhere playing Al Green’s ‘Belle’, a song she’d always loved; an upstairs window left open, volume just high enough to tempt her into singing along. The living-room light was on as she’d left it, muted through closed curtains. Key in her hand, she looked up and down the empty street.

Inside, she slipped the bolt and turned the key. Switched on the TV and listened to the ca

Ridiculous.

She clicked off the light.

The man in the restaurant: off duty or on?

The bedroom struck cold. Curling into position on her side, knees drawn up, one hand close to her face, she was asleep before realising she’d closed her eyes. Flat out.