Nowhere People

Twenty-two hours later, at the exact moment that Rener sits down at the table with the two glasses of cider saying that this is her favourite brand of the drink, one of the white girls at the next table, one of the three girls who look Swedish, gets up, excitedly gives a few little squeals and shows her perfect breasts to the two young black men who are at the table with her, daring them to touch at least one of them as she sways them from side to side to display their natural opulence, and the two young men just laugh, and she gives another few little shrieks as she looks quickly around to check whether she really is drawing attention to herself and proving that these wonders, that was the word she used, talking loudly, didn’t have a single millilitre of silicon in them, and the customers at the other tables applaud, and Paulo and Rener applaud. ‘Brixton. I love this place!’ Rener exclaims. Paulo downs the cider in one. It’s getting dark outside, which makes no difference, the bar is curtained anyway, the curtains are blue velvet, the DJ who is going to be playing from nine-thirty arrives with his case of records, Rener insists on pointing so that Paulo will see him, excited fascination doesn’t suit her. Everyone greets him, DJs and bartenders, these guys rule, whether in Brixton or in the City, especially on nights like this, Thursday nights, the hottest nights of the week, the police are focusing on the major demos, the same attention they will give them on Fridays and Saturdays, residential areas are almost totally abandoned. The DJ who has been working the decks brings the track to an end, a moment of silence from the speakers, and ‘Last Night a DJ Saved my Life’ bursts on. Paulo stands up saying he’s going to get a beer, asks if she wants another cider, Rener says she’ll stick with just the one she’s drinking now, Paulo walks over to the bar, asks for a beer, looks over at the table where Rener is sitting, an indescribable fluttering of dark skin in the darkness, she’s even more beautiful than on the night they first met. All pussy’s the same, Passo Fundo used to say, older men say that, too, but it’s not true. Rener had never surrendered her pussy to him, Paulo had not spoken to Passo Fundo again, Paulo has to go to the flat in Willesden Green to pick up his things. Rener plays with her hair and waves from a distance without any shyness, she’s even more beautiful than she was five minutes ago. Rener lives a perfect radicalism, Alice in a state of wonder, enjoying every last drop in the dropper, as she herself says when she’s impatient, Paulo must not have understood the subliminal meaning correctly, she’s four years and a few months older than him. The bartender puts the large glass of beer down on the counter, one pound thirty. Paulo leaves twenty pence as a tip, he returns to the table, she takes his hand, the hand that is holding the glass. ‘You can’t get drunk’, that is the only thing she says, the kiss between them fits, perhaps it’s her mouth, it’s fleshy; she says that the best kind of kiss is a kiss between two men, Where is this going? he thinks, then she takes a mini-torch from her trouser pocket and explains what he is going to have to do: as he’s the first-timer in the group he will be in charge of the simplest task. Paulo says nothing, puts down the glass, takes the torch. She goes on: he’ll be waiting with the torch on a corner two blocks from the mansion they’re going to occupy, it’s one of the two places the police might come from if they are called, and she takes a wristwatch from her jacket pocket, Paulo’s going to need a watch. The watch is synchronised with the watches of the other six and her own, she tells him to put it on and see if it feels comfortable on his wrist; Paulo obeys. It’s tight, he doesn’t say anything, he can adjust the strap later, he takes off the watch, holds it in his left hand. They will drop him a three-minute walk from the corner, he will need to arrive there at ten-fifteen, exactly the time when the others will be reaching their positions, and she and the other two who are also going in to break the house’s padlocks and door-locks will jump the wall, one will open the front gate and she and the other will deal with the back door to the house, back doors are always easier to get into. It will take them less than five minutes to change the lock; if Paulo spots a car approaching he will turn the torch on and off twice, if it’s a police car he will turn the light on and keep it on while he walks off at a right angle to the street, the others will do the rest. Paulo picks up his glass of beer in his right hand, he says he has understood what she has said clearly and that he could be more useful, she says he’s already doing a lot and that he shouldn’t kid himself, often it’s the ones keeping watch who are the first to be taken, mostly when the police arrive with two or more vehicles, but that isn’t going to happen, it’s all going to work out fine, the house has been empty a long time. And the DJ puts on something by Soul II Soul, Rener asks Paulo to dance, he accepts, a car will come and fetch them, less than forty minutes from now; he holds the watch in his left hand and notices what a good dancer she is.