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CHAPTER 1

ESTATE

SELVON

See the four blocks rising behind the shop roofs, red shells, and pointed arches pitched at the sky. I pick my pace up as I run through the market. Proper orphaned corner, this. Full of absent people stuck between bus stops and bookies. See them shuffling bodies. Lining up at cash machines and dole queues. Man only come around these Ends for a barber's, canned food, or like batteries, ennet. Nuttan more. Pure minor commerce. Any real money lands in spastic corners, in some bingo joint down near Wimpy sides or suttan. Don't make no sense to me. Every time I run past this place I feel like raggo, blessed I never grew up in Estate proper.

South Block is the nearest block to my road so I head through the market and toward the gate. Smell hits me hard as I turn into the stalls. See carrots and lemons and cabbages in boxes, piles of colored fruit stacked in blue crates. Shopkeepers putting out their plastic pap. Mobile-phone parts and baby clothes. Kitchenware hung on coat hangers. Run past it all, dodging the stools and the old dears. Maintain my breathing tho, keep a compact chest.

South Block entrance goes over my head now. Stones Estate is four gray towers around me. The square space in the center. See the walls. The graffiti is all over the brick walls, like scabby tagging reading short names in code. No one around me, just my body in motion. Adidas and vest. See the broken windows and overflowing garbage. I run past the skips, littered with needles and suttan nasty, suttan foul. It reeks of piss and harsh filth washed up under darkness. Bunn that.

Instead I make my eyes follow upward along the shape of the Estate walls against the sky, sharp and unbending corners. South Block shoots up tall and narrow and I go around the patchy grass and the court. The block's just waking up to the day. I'll be back here in an hour for football with the lads. If football is still on. If it ain't been kiboshed like everything else has been this week. Yoos should be texting me soon about it anyway. Wait and see, ennet. It will be good to be among that lot. I need faces, good bants, and humor. Need to spend time with people else I'll burn out with training. Running keeps me pressed, keeps me solid tho, still. I use this time for conditioning, pushing harder on this Estate concrete than I do on any other road. This is me running around Square. This is me fearless.

This Stones Estate got madness in it, everyone knows it. It don't touch me tho. But every time I run here I think about my mates living up in these council flats with all this haggard muck. In my mind this place owns a part of me too tho, with its silence and gray. It's part of me by association, ennet. Because I bus with Ardan and Yoos and they know me. And I run here. And I play footie here. Even though I live up in a proper house with a proper fam. This is where I run, where I'm known. For now.

I turn a corner and go past West Block. Shaded windows with faded red Arsenal flags and red United flags and red Liverpool flags and wet laundry. Like a hundred satellite dishes fixed to balconies. I think about taking a rest. Check my watch. I'm breaking sweat now and feeling it. So I pick up speed and extend my fingers slicing the air as I move into a sprint. I hear the motivation tapes in my earbuds: If your mind can conceive it, you can achieve it. I listen to these tapes on runs and in quiet moments. Voices of power and strength molding my ideal state. I get to the corner of West and North Block and stop. Check my watch. My fingers hang on the fenced gate and I see myself framed against this wall.

I have to continue this habit. Push myself and earn it, ennet. Earn my place and make my way out. I hold and regulate my breathing and bend down to my feet to press the sides of my running shoes. I stand again. I look up and stretch backward. The sky is a bright space above my head. Adrenaline hits me hard and I think about a hundred thoughts at once. I think about the clouds and Yoos and Ardan. Think about my body, my shape, my sweat, my muscles. I think about that lighty girl, Missy. Her body. How I need to smash it soon, else I'll go mad. I think about my family too. My dad and his failing heart. My marge and her church. I think about what they'll do once I'm gone. Think about the way out, the blue space above. The sky that I only see when I look upward and away from everything else around me. I'll be out of the Ends like dust, soon enough.

Close my eyes and take the earbuds out. Listen to the sound of the cars and the wind. I hear some noise, someone scratching from West Block. I look up there. The sun peeking over the opposite block, light bouncing off glazed windows blind my sight as I look. I check my watch. I'm making good time. I'll run on and head home.

I turn the corner into the junction and a car goes past me blaring some shit dance music. See the shutters open by the post office and police lines, running across Tobin Road. That white mob must have come through here. Them racists left bare shit on road as well. Dickheads. The whole place cordoned off, splinters of wood and white rags on road. I'll have to cut through park instead.

Have to keep pace. I set my arms close, squeezing my fists. My body tight, my heart cold. I hear the sound of prayer from August Road. I tune it out. Imagine a tunnel with only my body running through it. Allowing the Ends, allowing the marches, allowing the aggro. This is how I perfect my technique, the trick I use to let the city drift away from me while I run through it. I run with nuttan in mind and keep myself apart from everything around me. I'm best alone and when I'm running, ennet. Obviously. What else is there to run for except my own self?

CAROLINE

Oh these filthy nails won't grow back. Better not to catch a finger, not again after the last. I untangle the keys from under the basket of clothes. There, you. I balance the basket on my knee and feel for the lock. No use. I'll just set it down for the moment. Dirty washing on show for everyone to see. But this door, honestly, it's always been a bastard.

There it goes, at last.

A tug upward and in. Fucken thing.

I haul up my basket and drag the slipper with my foot. God what now, something smells right dead on the door. Another thing is it? You'd think the summer would dry up the mold. No, not even on the eighth floor of this West Block. It'd be too good for it, wouldn't it.

Here's me along the balcony past eighty-four. And that baby's crying again, listen. Better get a move on before Varda that hairy melter comes out and moans about the boy. Number eighty-five. Not a sign of that George Docherty either. Usually he's out here sucking on a dirty pipe, giving me the once-over. Number eighty-six and the smell of curry, no surprise.

I lift the basket while my feet find the stairwell blindly, careful like. I see only the black spittle and mulched receipts lining the corners the way down. I look over at the Square below minding the mildew on the banister. Nothing down there. The grounds are empty except for the carping birds and trees. Early still. The courtyard is in shadow, half a ways to morning. Kids' swings, silver slides untouched in the shade. Oh wait look. The other side of the Square, those Lithuanian women, four of them, walking back to the East Block. Home from a shift early. Each carrying a plastic bag. Each of them alone as I.

My toe snags a liner at the bottom of the stairwell. Jesus, and it nearly throws me. I step hard on my ankle and it hurts. Stupid. I swear at it, at the door the bags of what — of nappies — it belongs to. The door opens then and it's her. That smutty little. She has a look of amazement at me, has a cigarette on her lip, clueless.

At the foot of the stairs, see. I nearly threw my foot out!

All right keep your voice down, the baby's asleep.

She's young. Filthy. With her hair and pink nails, tights and trainers on. I can see her knickers through her tights. Usual sort on the ground floor. She'll look a hundred when she's forty.

No, I say, you listen! Every morning I'm made to step past your fucken bin-bags. I should inform the council. You'd do well to stop having so many babies if you can't mind the nappies.

She steps out her door now and takes her cigarette in her fingers.

You better watch your mouf you old bint. Don't you tell me how to live.

Oh you dirty little.

You're always down here complainin about somink. Go on, jog on!

The door opens behind her and it's her fellar. The big one with the tattoos and dark eyes that look like John's eyes. Seeing him makes me step back a little with my basket in my arms getting heavy.

What's all this then?

It's that Irish woman from upstairs. Says she's going to tell council.

What for?

Because of the bin-bags or I don't know.

The fellar looks at the bins and then up at me.

Oh leave off today Carol, would you yeah?

I lean forward at them both, I thrust the basket at them and at the bin-bags there in the corner.

Move your bin-bags over to refuse from now on, d'you hear me?

I says it to him like that, dead-on like.

He moves out of the door then and I press my back against the banister. He points over to the skips under the arch, like a right Brit thug.

Look, he says, can't you see the skips are overflowing? They ain't collected yesterday's bags because of them marches, yeah?

What?

There look, police cut off the road haven't they, for the protests. So the collectors couldn't pass through here on the Thursday. The skips are full Carol. When they ain't full I'll get rid of the bags. But until then, I'm leaving them here, all right?

He goes back inside and the girl has her head out the door staring.

See? The skips are full, so what you want us to do about it? Blame them marches, ennet. If you want somink to complain about.

I gather my clothes, sniffing, and I smell the bags and it makes me want to vomit. I scowl at her.

But you can't move them out from the foot of the stairs? The very least.

I turn and move off. I hear the girl, dragging the bins back nearer the door, muttering to herself, calling me an old hag, an old cunt. The mouth on her. I hear her behind me, mind. But I move off anyways.

I walk quickly past the dark spot under the arch. Past more awful smell and the filth on the walls. Sure the police lines are cutting off the North Gate. I have to lift the police tape to pass under. That ugly mob. Disrupting everybody's morning. Oh I heard them. I could barely sleep for the racket. And the road is littered with their mess come morning. A lost shirt, square signs spelling No Sharia Law, paper strips of something nasty. It's this boy killed, isn't it, this soldier-boy. So they say. And now they're out here shouting. That's another nonsense. It won't bring the dead back will it, I know that much. Foolish, the lot of them. Pot stirrers. The council should do something about. They won't.

I walk out of the North Gate and into the Market Street and the morning light. The way that little bitch spoke to me just now. Lord, honestly. Like all I want is to do my laundry in peace. Any sort of peace and quiet would be most bleeding welcome. Not much of it going these days. Not with raising a lad on this Estate and my John having left. My John, listen to me, fuck. Perhaps I am a difficult woman then. An old hag right, that's what they call me. So what if I am then, difficult. So be it. It's what the years have made of me. This place has made of me. One step out the door and there's always some egregious shit ready to spit at your feet.

Oh here we go. Eyes down now. I pass the early men by the bookies. Each a hung bake, dirty clothes and shifty. Waiting on Jesus for their lot. Market Street is full of this sort. Hopeless stragglers, beaten-down saints huddled up against the mean road. Each as alone as I. Walk past them and walk past the Polish men filling crates of carrots and mangoes. Take a left on Lowry Road.

But they don't notice me anyway. Good.

Now, when did I see Ma last? When the boy was six. That's it, eight years after Father Orman settled on Pine Road by the Cricklewood Crown. Mustn't forget that, must I? This place was meant to save me. Ma had sent me here to keep her girl out of harm's way. Aye, how blessed am I? Just the daughter after all, a wee sister, not a fierce one like the others. And how's that worked out? From one set of troubles to the next I suppose, seeing the violence out here in the open. Jesus, they might as well have sent me to Rome, the air is just as thick with prayer.

It'll be July soon, Feast of the Holy Blood. I won't go back though, for Ma's wake. I didn't even go back for Damian's. Sure as they'd remind me. And the money? Where would I find the money to go? I'd ask you Ma, how am I supposed to find the money to journey back to Belfast now? No look, the boys will manage without me. As they have done since you packed me off to Father Orman. I've the boy now anyway. And the laundry to do.

I pass under the bridge where the launderette is tucked behind. I hear my steps against the tunnel walls and the empty road. I reach for my packet of cigarettes. The darkness always reminds me of her somehow. Ma, that aul doll. She would stand in the corner back when, wouldn't she? She'd stand there and watch, her black eyes on me. Like I'd peek from behind my hair until she was satisfied I'd nodded asleep. In death as in life I'm sure, Ma will stand there in the shadows and watch.

I push the door. The launderette is open. Aye, small mercies.

ARDAN

Last time I was up here was after Mehdi's house party months ago. After them lot called me faggot for not fingering that Shelly girl. I just dussed out. Drank bare spirit that night as well, I was mad depressed and mangy. Came up here to look at the Ends at night because the view from West Block is as nice as it is dismal in the daytime.

Looked like it was on fire, this place. Yellow windows and lights in distant black and planes flashing red and white in the sky. Looked sick. Wrote enough bars that night too. Bare rando lyrics that would just roll out of mind like a mad one. Easy, like. Easy-peasy to write anything when I'm up here. I can see them streets all spread out in front of me. I can breathe and allow any dumb fuckery that's on my mind. But then daylight comes. Shows me everything don't no one want to see. The Ends, Stones Estate, Neasden. This drab and broke-down place. Better if the sun stayed buried, ennet, leaving us to the blackness to disappear inside, still.

I clock the sun peeking over East Block now, dragging shadows across Square below. Reminding me of where it is I'm at, breathing in the air from the scattered trees and the line of low smog bringing in the morning. People talk about Bronx. Like in Brooklyn and them American estates, them projects, they talk about them spots like it's got some kind of road beauty. Even though they places of pain. Just cause bare rappers were born there, ennet, managing to turn their basic living into loot.

But there's a few hours when these Ends can rival that kind of romance too. The mornings for starters. When bodies wake up, start the day, and sort the grind. Then it's them deepest nights when the lights sketch out the scene and the sounds of cars ripping wet streets and all you hear is buses gassing up and sirens fire.

Rest of the day is bleak as fuck tho, standard.

I look down at my Biro rolling between my finger and pad. I'm staring down at this new verse like I ain't feeling it. No, I ain't feeling these bars. I just wrote them and I know there ain't nuttan there.

I read them aloud:

North Block rooftop spitting early Nobody sees me, nobody hears me So I drop my shoulders like The city gives the roads their light

My fingers ease. Raise my head from my papers and itch my ears with the chewed part of the pen. Ah, bunn this. I turn around. Poke my pockets for the rest of the bars I wrote. Unfold the paper. I crush it, both my hands hard. I rip it. I throw it over the wall, watch the pieces fall into the dead Square below. Ain't about them dead lyrics. I brush my hands off and rub my bleary eyes. My mouth feels gummy like I'm parched. There's some flat Coke downstairs. I'll go down in a mo and swig it.

I clock Max sniffing around the roof, flicking his mutty tail like he's on a mission. That dog always calms me. It's just the tiredness, ennet, pressing me down and making me feel like a pauper. Fingers feel rinsed and my head is dense with wrangled wording. I ain't slept, ennet, and my mouth is dry and my skin is dry around my eyes. I collect my other papers in a rough order, bars first and loose notes. I take my phone, stop the recording, stash it away. Back pocket. That's enough for today.

I give a stretch and I feel the cool air touch my bare stomach under my shirt. I look out over the view. Estate looks contained, small from up here. The court is barren and the other blocks only got a few lights switched on still. The morning tempo is changing and the sky is graying up. The sounds is what I like. Ends noise. I listen and hear some distant po-po go by, doors clatter closed, and leaves rustle. A bird crows at me. My eyes catch it flying off. I follow it over to the windows in the opposite block. East Block railings running across red doors. I look to my right and all the green ones on South Block, to my left blue doors on North. All these colors are washed away now and streaky. All four blocks look like they about to crumble any day. I squint to see if I can make anyone out in one of them windows. I wonder if they can see me. Making circles and spitting rhymes up here. Probably not tho. If they did they probably think I'm some crackhead or suttan. Might as well be, ennet, hiding out, like, on a rooftop on my jays.

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Excerpted from "In Our Mad and Furious City"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Guy Gunaratne.
Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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