Broken Homes

11

We went in early like a dawn raid, on the theory that if we were already in place when the locals woke up they’d just accept us the way badgers accept a naturalist’s low-light camera in their sett. The other reason we went in early was because we were borrowing a van from one of my relatives and he needed it back first thing. We couldn’t hire a removal van as we didn’t have enough stuff to make that credible, and we had more stuff than we could carry ourselves since otherwise we would look like squatters or, worse, undercover police officers.

Not that we really were undercover police officers, because UC operations are subject to strict guidelines and operational oversight by senior officers. What we were doing was in fact an extremely subtle form of community policing. So subtle that, if we were lucky, the community could carry on, blissfully unaware that they were being policed at all. Just to be on the safe side, Lesley wore her other mask. The one which was coloured olive tan instead of surgical pink, which she claimed was strictly for when she was off duty. She let Toby sit in her lap.

You didn’t get a good view of Skygarden when you arrived by road. Stromberg had surrounded the central tower with five long thin blocks, each nine storeys high, a very conventional design that, one architectural critic complained, obscured the exuberance of Stromberg’s central conceit. These were built in a conventionally slipshod manner which certainly obscured the exuberance of most of the people that lived there, who also comprised the bulk of the population of the estate. Arriving from the Elephant and Castle side you emerged from under the railway bridge to get a quick glimpse of the tower before turning into the estate and dropping down past the, by then, sealed-off garage areas of the blocks and into a narrow culvert sunk six metres below ground level. It was just wide enough for a VW Beetle and a Mini to pass each other and the pavements were only a little bit wider than curbs, pedestrian traffic having theoretically been channelled onto the walkway that was suspended overhead. During the 1981 riots the residents had built a barricade across the culvert and waited with petrol bombs and stones, but the police declined to turn up — I don’t blame them. Back then the Skygarden had been as close to being a real no-go estate as ever existed in the fevered mind of a journalist but Sergeant Daverc said its glory days were long past, and you were as safe there now as you would be in Chipping Norton. Certainly it was home to fewer professional criminals.

The access road opened into a sunken tarmacked area that surrounded the base of the tower, the outer perimeter of which was lined with garage doors. The actual garages, built just slightly too small for modern-sized cars, were set into the soil of the surrounding landscaping. Above these doors was another metre and a half of concrete cladding topped by a chain-link fence beyond which I could just see, despite the fact that I was effectively standing at the bottom of a wide hole, tufts of grass and the tops of distant trees. I was willing to bet big money that the fence hadn’t been in the original plans and wondered how many kids had injured themselves jumping down from the park before the council put it in.

We’d asked Frank Caffrey to drive the van for us, since out of his London Fire Brigade kit he looked the part of White Van Man. It was a character he certainly grew into when he elected to stay in the cab and read the Sun while me and Lesley unloaded our stuff.

Like his hero Corbusier, and many of his contemporaries, Stromberg had had a strange phobia about ground-floor flats. In Skygarden the lower ground floor was strictly for loading and unloading and what is always referred to on blueprints as ‘plant’. The ‘ground floor’, where the elevated walkways converged, was for pedestrian entry, community areas and storage. Thus ensuring that no matter how far down the block the council parked your granny, she was still going to get some much needed exercise when the lifts stopped working.

After we’d got the sofa bed out the back of the van and were taking a breather, I glanced up and saw a white kid in a navy-blue hoody staring down at us from the nearest walkway. I know trouble when it’s below the age of criminal responsibility, and while my first instinct was to arrest his parents on general principles, I gave him a cheery wave instead. He gave me a blankly suspicious look before whipping his head out of sight.

‘The natives know we’re here,’ I said.

The doors to the atrium were constructed from heavy metal and wire mesh reinforced glass. We used one of our heavier boxes to jam them open while we hefted the sofa bed towards the lift.

‘You all right in there, Frank?’ called Lesley as she strained to lift her end.

Back in the van, Frank gave her a cheery thumbs-up.

The atrium had a concrete floor and what looked like recently repainted plaster-covered breezeblock walls. Stair access was to the left, doors leading to ‘plant’ to the right and a pair of reassuringly familiar dimpled graffiti-resistant lift doors to our front. I pressed the call button. There was a red square of plastic inset into the wall above the door which remained resolutely dark.

‘Shouldn’t we at least get the rest of the stuff into here?’ asked Lesley.

‘I want to check the state of the lift first,’ I said.

I put my ear to the cold metal of the door and listened — there were some comforting rumbles and clanks from above. I stood back and the doors opened.

It was urine and graffiti free, which is always a good sign in a lift, but it was small — an expression of the architect’s faith that the proletariat were unencumbered by such bourgeois affectations as solidly built furniture. Me and Lesley had to wrestle the sofa bed into an awkward diagonal to get inside. Leaving the rest of our stuff in Frank’s care, we ascended to our new home.

The flats in the tower came in two basic varieties, two bedroom and four bedroom. The four-bedroom flats were on two floors linked by an internal staircase and the two-bedroom flats were stacked one on top of the other with an external staircase leading up to the top flat. Thus the lifts only went to every other floor and Stromberg had cunningly managed to combine some of the disadvantages of a terraced street with all the disadvantages of a tower block.

When we reached the twenty-first floor we managed to extricate the sofa bed with just a bit of scuffing to the armrests and only minor damage to the lift doors.

For some reason, Stromberg had designed a hexagonal central shaft that ran up the middle of the tower so that for the first few years you could lean over and stare all the way down to the basement level. Since it didn’t function as a light-well and it was ten times wider than needed for the building’s tuned mass damper, it was a bizarre bit of architectural whimsy even for the late 1960s. The tenants soon put it to good use as a combination waste disposal area and emergency urinal and after two suicides and a notorious murder case, the council installed heavy duty wire mesh to seal it off from the walkways.

Our flat, of course, was right on the other side of the shaft. As we lugged our increasingly heavy sofa bed around the walkway, I noticed that half the flats on our floor had been sealed shut with steel security doors. COUNTY GARD was neatly stencilled at eye height and attached below that a legal warning to all squatters that it was a crime punishable by six months in prison or a?5,000 fine.

‘Or both,’ said Lesley with satisfaction.

The front door for our new flat was a plain modern design lacking those traditional panels of frosted glass that allowed light in and your more entrepreneurial neighbours a chance to determine whether the place was occupied or not — just in case you had some big ticket items lying around unwanted.

Inside, the flat had been painted mostly white with a hint of apple and recently enough for the walls to be clean — although we did leave a graze at waist level in the hallway as we squeezed the sofa bed in. We plonked it down in what I assumed was the living room, and sat down to recover.

I’ve got to say that Stromberg was consistent in his architectural principles. The hallways were narrow, the rooms were too long and the ceilings were low. It also had sliding patio doors out onto a huge balcony — the size of a small urban garden. You could have added an extra bedroom to the flat and still had enough balcony left over to feed pigeons, hang washing and dump all the stuff you couldn’t be bothered to wrestle down the stairs.

‘Right,’ said Lesley. ‘We’d better get back downstairs before Frank drives off in search of a fry-up.’

Fortunately he was still there when we reached him, trapped in his cab by a formidable white woman who was bending his ear. Dressed in an M amp;S blouse and Peacock budget slacks, she was the type of large white woman who’s been apprenticing for the role of saucy granny since late adolescence. By the looks of it, this one was going to graduate in the top two percentile.

She said her name was Betsy.

‘You just moving in?’ she asked and seemed delighted to hear that we were. She introduced the junior Hoodie I’d spotted earlier as her son Sasha and sent him off to fetch Kevin — her eldest, and a bit more useful in the hefting of heavy objects department.

‘What happened to your face?’ asked the woman. ‘If you don’t mind me asking? Well, of course you mind. But I’m nosy, me. Was it an acid attack? Only I heard they had a couple of those down Bromley but that was an honour thing. You know, like an honour killing only with acid. Are you a Muslim? You don’t look like Muslims, but then what does a Muslim look like?’

‘Chip pan,’ said Lesley quickly. ‘Accident with a chip pan.’

The woman gave me such an unfriendly look that I took a step back.

‘It wasn’t him who did it was it?’ she asked. ‘Only we don’t stand for that kind of stuff round here.’

Lesley assured Betsy that it had been an industrial accident rather than domestic violence, but I was still pleased when Kevin arrived and I could retreat into what had suddenly been designated as ‘men’s work’. Kevin himself was a big man with sandy hair and layers of muscle under rolls of fat. He lifted his end of Lesley’s bed with ease while Sasha carried one of the smaller boxes.

‘What do you do, then?’ asked Kevin.

‘Anything I can get,’ I said.

Kevin nodded sagely. He was an old hand at cramming stuff into the lift, so we only had to make two journeys. It was a neighbourly gesture that either demonstrated that the spirit of community was not dead or allowed Kevin to suss out whether we had anything worth nicking. Or possibly both.

Lesley returned the favour by running an IIP check on the whole family as soon as our front door was safely closed. While she did that, I put Toby’s lead on and headed out to the shops.

Of the three elevated walkways leading from the Ground Floor, two went to the Old Kent Road and Heygate Street respectively, piercing the blocks in front of them exactly the same way the monorails do in old-fashioned depictions of the future. Both of these had been sealed off at the block end by Southwark Council to restrict access and prevent vandalism. The last remaining walkway was the one built on pillars over the access road and gave out in the gap between two blocks at the corner of Elephant Road. I’d wondered about the culvert. But as I walked away from the tower I realised, looking around, that I couldn’t see any roads or signs of vehicles at all. Stromberg, I decided, had he been given the budget, would have gone the whole hog and buried the road underground. When I reached the ramp at the far end I turned to look back and saw that the blocks acted as gigantic garden walls cupping a green bowl in which grew some of the biggest plane trees I’ve ever seen, thirty metres tall some of them, high enough to overhang the walkway and, sheltered as they were, they were nonetheless in full spring leaf. And rearing out of the centre was the dusty brown crenellated spike of Skygarden Tower.

‘Fuck me,’ I said to Toby. ‘We’re living in Isengard.’

It started raining as soon as I was off the estate. But one good thing about Skygarden was that it was handy for the shops. On the way back I let Toby off his lead but, far from rushing off to explore, he stuck close to my heel and seemed grateful to reach the lifts.

As I juggled my shopping bags looking for my keys, I noticed a nervous white woman eyeing me from the flat to our right. She was small, thin, with long lank brown hair and dressed in a faded red sweatshirt and faded jeans that were probably much tighter before she lost weight. I recognised the mixture of hope and trepidation on her face and realised that she was our resident fallen princess.

Every estate has at least one of these per block. Middle- or upper-middle-class girls who’ve managed to overcome the advantages of their birth and end up in council housing with a child or an addiction or both. They’re easy to spot because they have a constant air of bewilderment, as if they can’t understand why the universe has stopped tilting in their favour. They don’t get much in the way of sympathy on an estate — I’m sure I don’t have to explain why.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Have you just moved in?’

She advanced along the walkway until she was halfway towards me and then hesitated. Her feet were bare and she placed them like a ballerina.

‘Just this morning,’ I said. ‘Got any tips?’

‘Not really,’ she said and advanced again.

I put my bags down and stuck my hand out. ‘My name’s Peter Grant,’ I said using my full name in the hope that she’d reciprocate. She gave me a limp handshake.

‘Emma Wall,’ she said — it’s so much easier to run someone through the system if you have their full name.

Close up she smelt of cigarette smoke and twitched like a junkie, but if I had to guess I’d have said she was in recovery. Not that you can really tell — I should know.

‘How long have you lived here?’ I asked.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Just looking for a native guide,’ I said.

Emma bit her lip and then, after a long pause, gave a false little chuckle.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Would you-’

I never found out what I might have done, because the door opened and Lesley stuck her face out.

‘Hello,’ she said cheerily. ‘Any chance of the shopping arriving?’

I sighed and picked up the bags and told Emma I’d see her later.

‘Sure,’ she said and fled back to her flat.

‘Who was that?’ asked Lesley as I unpacked the groceries in the kitchen. By the style and level of wear on the kitchen fittings I could narrow the date the work was done to the early 2000s. The top edges were dented and discoloured and when I opened the wall-mounted cupboard, the doors were wonky. The styles may change but it’s always laminated chipboard underneath.

I gave her Emma’s full name and flat number so she could run a check later, which reminded me to ask whether anything had popped on Betsy and her family.

‘Public order offences,’ she said. ‘Threatening behaviour, assault, GBH, drunk and disorderly.’

‘Kevin?’

‘Betsy,’ she said. ‘Or rather Elizabeth Tankridge nee Tuttle, most of it steadily accumulated over the last twenty years or so except for the threatening behaviour which was last week.’

‘One to ask Sergeant Daverc about,’ I said.

‘Son Kevin on the other hand has never been charged with anything, although his name comes up in relation to thirty-six separate investigations mostly burglaries and receiving. Why did you get so much Weetabix?’

‘It was a BOGOF,’ I said.

The flap on the letterbox rattled and we both leaned out of the kitchen door to see why. It rattled again and it was impossible to tell whether someone was trying to push something through, or use it as a substitute door knocker.

I walked quietly over to the door and when I was sure that Lesley had taken a secure place in the living room doorway, out of the line of sight, I turned the Chubb handle and pulled it open.

A man was stooped over in front of our letterbox, caught in the act of either snooping or pushing a leaflet through.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Can I help you?’

The man stayed bent over but turned his head so he could see me out of the corner of his eye.

‘As it happens,’ he said and held out a hand. ‘If you would?’

I took his hand, his skin was soft, wrinkled but his grip was very firm. He took a deep breath and then letting me take some of his weight levered himself painfully upright. He was a white man of medium height with a blunt honest face that would have been his fortune had he been selling second-hand cars. His hair was white but thick, long and pulled back into a pony tail.

‘Oh, the back of the working man,’ he said, and shook the hand he was already holding. ‘Jake Phillips, local activist, busybody and thorn in the side of late stage capitalism.’

‘Peter Grant,’ I said. ‘Recent arrival, slacker and man of very little fame.’

Jake Phillips thrust a leaflet into my hand. ‘Well, I’m offering a once in a month-time opportunity to attend a Skygarden TRA meeting. Everyone welcome.’

‘I’ll see you there,’ I said.

This caused Jake to pause.

‘Really?’ he asked.

‘Yeah — why not?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Okay. I’m the chair, by the way.’

Of course you are, I thought.

We exchanged goodbyes a couple more times before Jake moved off towards the stairwell — I closed the door.

‘Man of very little fame?’ asked Lesley.

‘First thing that came into my head,’ I said.

We returned to the kitchen where we found that Toby was still sitting and staring intently into the shopping bags. I pulled out a tin and showed it to him.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Meaty chunks.’

Toby barked.

‘We did bring a tin opener, didn’t we?’ asked Lesley.

Well, the exercise probably did me and Toby good. And, like I said, the shops were nice and close.

Everyone who ever grew up on an estate and had parents who cared enough to give them a birthday party knew about the community room. A room set aside for whatever it was that idealistic young architects thought the working class might need it for — workers’ soviets is my guess. What they actually get used for is Tenant and Resident Association meetings, keep fit for the over fifties and birthday parties. Generally they’re large, low-ceilinged rooms set on the ground floor with, if you’re lucky, a kitchen area and toilets attached. They’re usually as charmless and as welcoming as a Job Centre, but I have some good memories of the one at my parents’ estate. Particularly my thirteenth birthday when I managed my first proper snog with Samantha Peel who was a year above me and strangely keen. Who knows where it might have gone if my mum hadn’t descended like the wrath of god and broken it up. Not long after her throw down with my most recent girlfriend, my mum pointedly informed me that Samantha was now a qualified dental nurse, married with two kids and living in a terrace in Palmers Green. I’m not sure what she expected me to do with that information.

The Skygarden TRA meeting was about as exciting as you’d imagine, although much better attended than I expected. At least twenty to thirty people sat on the formed plastic chairs in a big ragged circle. Betsy and Kevin were there, which surprised me, and Jake Phillips was chair, which didn’t. He was a good chair too, working briskly through the agenda. We were introduced as new tenants and were welcomed and stared at curiously — especially Lesley. A nervous Somali man reported that Southwark Housing Services had promised faithfully that the lift repair contractors would look at the broken lift in the next week. There were groans and catcalls from the audience.

‘Remember it’s important to log all these problems,’ said Jake. ‘That way you can give them chapter and verse when they try to stall you.’

A few people nodded — this was obviously familiar advice. There were some reports on rubbish collection but nothing on the central issue of preserving the tower itself. Me and Lesley listened intently and made notes of names and faces, the better to have them sent for reeducation later. During the planning phase of this operation, or more precisely what we discussed after dinner at the Folly, we had considered the possibility that the Faceless Man might have his own agents planted in the tower.

‘It’s not like me and Lesley are inconspicuous,’ I’d said.

Nightingale had winced, as he always does, at my incorrect use of the accusative pronoun but I think I’m beginning to wear him down.

‘We’re not really the ones hiding anything,’ Lesley had said. ‘If they spot us and react, then we have a better chance of spotting them back. If they don’t panic they’re still going to have to alter their plans on the fly, and that’ll also make them easier to spot. Meanwhile, we’ll be poking around in their business and they won’t be able to do anything about it.’

I couldn’t help thinking of Patrick Mulkern cooking from the inside as his bones caught fire.

‘And if they come after us?’ I’d asked.

‘Then Frank and I will deal with them,’ Nightingale had said.

If the Faceless Man did have people in place, then I figured they’d have to attend the TRA meetings in case the residents threatened to accidentally disrupt their plans. But they wouldn’t want to be obvious. So I concentrated my attention on people who’d managed to stay awake during the meeting but hadn’t made a contribution themselves.

I mentally earmarked several candidates, but top of my list were a pale young man with a floppy haircut who looked like an off-duty Goth and a second white guy, middle aged with short brown hair, who wore a tweed jacket with leather trim and looked like he collected stamps or built cathedrals out of matchsticks. I thought it unlikely that the off-duty Goth would attend without an ulterior motive, and that the stamp collector would sit through the meeting without giving his opinion.

The last item on the agenda was a resolution to see if we, that’s the TRA, could drum up some media interest in the fact that the Council was paying County Gard more to secure the empty flats than it would cost to refurbish them for new tenants.

This was carried unanimously and the meeting broke up.

Because we only had the one bit of comfy furniture, we both ended up on the sofa drinking Special Brew and watching TV. Well, I say TV. Actually it was our laptop propped up on a kitchen chair playing the BBC iPlayer, and it worked pretty well apart from the frequent stops for buffering caused by the fact that we were pirating WiFi from someone who’d failed to stick a password on their router and the signal was weak.

‘I may be from a small town,’ said Lesley. ‘But didn’t that seem just a little bit too sociable for the inner city?’

I knew most of the people on my estate. Although, that said, mine was a bit smaller than the Skygarden proper.

‘This is not a normal estate,’ I said. ‘The council probably offered to rehouse anyone who wanted to leave. These are the people that either liked it here or are too stubborn to change.’

‘In America I heard they come round with cake,’ said Lesley.

‘I bet they don’t in New York,’ I said.

A flurry of rain struck the window panes.

‘What do you think Jake would say if he knew we were taking down names?’

‘He’d love it,’ I said. ‘After all these years the secret police are finally taking an interest.’

Toby, who seemed to have adapted rapidly to the idea that we weren’t going home, jumped up into the gap between us and made himself comfortable.

‘So what do we do tomorrow?’ asked Lesley.

‘Tomorrow,’ I said, scratching Toby’s head, ‘we have a good sniff around.’