Salter Road/Lagado Mews junction to Bermondsey Jubilee Line station

Letting the days go by…

Words by Andy Hayes, typography by Sean Rees

Stella grew up in Cobham, Surrey and was an account manager in a big ad agency in Canary Wharf. She moved to Bermondsey as it was cheap, and had good transport links to work through the Rotherhithe Tunnel.

The tunnel had always scared Phil as a child. Joe, his older brother, said it was a black hole which sucked in traffic. ‘Young Pip’, as he was known, had a good imagination, and pictured helpless drivers spat out into an alternative universe. Then, one day, he worked out that cars came out as well as going in.

His family had lived in the area for donkey’s years. He was born in Dickens House, right opposite where Bermondsey Jubilee Line station is now. Stella would head into work from there, once the line extended its silver reach south of the river.

His dad worked at the local Peek Freans factory, and made Ginger Nuts, Bourbons and Custard Creams. He was a hard-nosed, gravel-voiced man, but after a few pints, had a heart as soft as London clay. His mum had high hopes for her youngest son. He’d always shown interest in the arts. She said he should be a writer as they lived in Dickens House. His Dad joked that he’d probably be a waiter. Joe said that he’d always be a wanker.

—

Pip was drinking with work pals in The Boatman on the night he met Stella. He worked for the council and had spent the afternoon scooping up dog shit in Southwark Park. He didn’t mind. He had set his sights low and liked being outside. He listened to music on his Walkman, and carried a pocket camera and notepad to record the daily events of his life. He made sure no one else knew. They would only take the piss.

He had no idea where this creative impulse came from. No one in his family had ever shown the slightest interest in the arts, although his Auntie Doris once sold choc-ices at the London Palladium. She was standing in for a friend who’d caught the clap off a Latvian sailor.

His future wife came into the bar that night with a friend from work she’d invited round for supper. She lived nearby in Drummond Road. The Peak Freens factory had closed in 1989, and she slept near the spot where his Uncle Tommy used to taste Twiglets for a living. They’d peered through the steamed-up pub window before taking a few tentative steps in. It was the best time of day: early evening, just before tea. Men with red faces in white overalls shouted at each other. Pints were consumed at an alarming rate. Crisps were crunched noisily. They ate with their mouths open. “Toto”, whispered Stella, “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

He saw the girls come in and made sure he found a spot at the bar right next to them. At first, he couldn’t decide on which one to go for. Both were really attractive, well-dressed and well out of his league, but he soon settled on her. The other one was holding a tissue over her mouth to stop herself gagging. It was smoky and noisy and she didn’t want to stay. The asparagus tips were beckoning back at Stella’s flat.

He slapped his half-empty pint on the bar, turned to her and said – “So, sweetpants, what y’ gonna buy me then?” She stared straight back at him, liked what she saw, and asked the barman for three Campari and sodas. The barman, a miserable walrus-man known as Smiler, laughed, for the first time in four years. Pip fell in love with her right there and then.

—

She loved his rough charm, and the fact that he read Dickens, but hadn’t told anyone this except her and his own mother. They both had the same favourite song, Talking Heads’ ‘Once in a Lifetime’. When they went out and got drunk they’d sing ‘Same as it ever was’ repeatedly on the last bus home. When she berated him for not fulfilling his potential, he shrugged and sang ‘Letting the days go by’, and held his hands up like David Byrne impersonating a Deep South evangelical preacher. He made her laugh, and her salary introduced him to wholemeal bread and good red wine.

Her mother thought this was just a phase she was going through. She knew from experience, if she challenged her, it would only harden her resolve. Her father loved her more than Margaret Thatcher and the Daily Telegraph crossword, so anything she did was OK by him.

His family were made up. “She’s class that one”, said his dad. His mum couldn’t keep the smile from her face. But in a small dark place in her heart, she knew it couldn’t last.

They got married, in a bit of a hurry as Jake was on his way. Her father, meeting his family for the first time, quipped that the last time he saw such a ragged bunch of men in ill-fitting suits, they were awaiting judgement at the Old Bailey.

—

They started to drift apart when Jake was nine, and Jodie, their second, was seven. She took up running and he took up drinking. They used to share a glass of red wine once the kids had settled down. Now he swapped back from Pinot Noir to pints. She started training for the marathon, and he encouraged her, so it would get her out of the house and off his case. There were still brief glimmers of affection, but mostly, things just stumbled along, unravelling gently.

—

On the day of the marathon he gave her a kiss and squeezed her bum. He whispered that he still loved her and apologised for being an arsehole. He wished her luck. She hugged him and held back the tears. She reminded him to be at the Surrey Water bridge around 11.30.

The pubs were open early as it was race day, so he went to The Boatman. He bumped into Bill. They had been best friends at school. Bill was bitter and drank it by the bucketload as if to emphasize the fact. They had a couple, then he realised he really needed to get going. He fancied another one. He liked Bill and didn’t want to leave him alone. She wouldn’t notice would she?

Bill had no one. He had her and the kids. But he missed not having any responsibilities, getting drunk, and even falling over now and then. It was true, she had civilised him, and made his life richer. But he also felt tamed. A wild beast in a gilded cage; fed red meat at regular intervals, but neutered – rendered harmless and insignificant.

He ordered two more drinks. Bill hugged him. He felt good, rebellious, back in the jungle once more. On the prowl, stalking prey. He ordered two packs of Cheesy Wotsits to celebrate.

—

She was doing well. She kept time with her race plan and was well hydrated. She was in a good mood. Pip had moved her that morning. Her mother, friends and relations had been wrong about them. Yes they argued and didn’t have a lot to say to each other these days. But they had had a lot of fun over the years, too. He could still surprise her with his tenderness, and make her laugh at the most mundane things. At least they had stuck together, unlike a lot of their friends.

—

She passed Lagado Mews. It was only a short distance now to Surrey Water. Then she hit the bridge.

He was nowhere to be seen.

The bastard: The dirty, lying, lazy, shitting bastard. She almost felt like turning round, going home and packing her suitcase. But no, he wouldn’t ruin her big day. She wouldn’t be dragged down to his level. She didn’t need him. She could leave him now the kids were older, they would cope – they probably wouldn’t even notice he was gone.

She carried on running, focusing on the race and her target time. Then, when she got to Brunel Road, she could just make out some lunatic who’d broken through the watching crowd, and was heading in the opposite direction to all the runners. What an idiot. But, as he got closer, she recognised the man from The Boatman all those years ago. He was running straight towards her, looking flushed, sweating and clearly out of breath. He’d grabbed a bunch of flowers from the garage: “Sweetheart”, he roared, “I’m sorry I’m late. Go girl, go… I fucking love you!”

And with that she melted, reluctantly at first, then grinned, blew him a kiss, and shouted back, “Same as it bloody ever was!” She could hear him singing “Letting the days go by…” as the race marshals dragged him away, his arms flailing wildly in the pale April sun.

Postscript

Run, run, as fast as you can

We skip up the station steps Millie and I. We’re at Bermondsey, the end of my mile. The sun is shining, the crowd’s cheering, and the runners are sweating. There are drums and shrill tin whistles. It’s a carnival.

I see the top of a gingerbread man and my heart swells with pride. For him, for me, and for everyone who’s taken part in our project, 26 Miles. He’s our mascot you see, the icon we use on our twitter feed.

There’s also a biscuit theme running through my story, Letting the days go by. My main character, Pip, is born just down the road from the now defunct Peek Freens factory. This is where they used to turn out Custard Creams, Bourbons and Ginger Nuts in their millions.

Every short story should contain at least one biscuit from my point of view. Chekhov loved a chocolate chip cookie. And Raymond Carver always pushed for Jammy Dodgers to be included in his work. Sadly, he was overruled by his agent, and slipped into alcoholism as a result.

Just like biscuits, the runners themselves come in all shapes and sizes. Anyone in fancy dress gets a big cheer. Charity fundraisers are popular too.

We line the streets while some locals peer on from their balconies. They live in hastily assembled post-war blocks. Sometimes cheek-by-jowl with newer, smarter flats. They have the best view, but somehow don’t feel part of the party: Bemused onlookers, left to clear up the post-race mess.

The gleaming towers of Canary Wharf loom large to the east. I think about this big city I love. We’re all Londoners today. I come over all emotional, I hadn’t expected this. Maybe it’s because of Boston? Maybe it’s because our own written race is over. Maybe it’s just my sweet brown-eyed girl grinning up at me over her Coke as I glug on an ice-cold can of Heineken and toast the day…

Redriff Road/Ropemaker Road junction to Salter Road/Lagado Mews junction

Running Past

Words by Tony Clarke, images by Tony and Maureen Clarke

In 1982, this stretch of Rotherhithe was a run-down area. I know. I ran down it. On Sunday, May 9^th, with15,268 others. The second London Marathon. Now, on a cold January Sunday morning nearly 31 years later, I’m here again, ambling – probably close to the pace to that I managed first time around – along a mile of Salter Road, SE16, between Ropemaker Road and Lagado Mews.  Now, I’m a writer in search of a story.  Then, I was a runner in search of… well, ‘glory,’ though it rhymes nicely, would be stretching things a bit, as precisely 11,464 runners pushed that year’s winner, Hugh Jones, all the way to the line that little bit more than I did.

Sunday, being a day of restlessness, normally guarantees the sighting of a jogger or two. They’re often those, like me, for whom the words ‘young’ and ‘fit’ are but an ’80s memory; all discordant gait and Munch-painting grimace, and seemingly motivated by a belief that their pain means no gain – yet – for that most relentless of pursuers, the cloaked man and his scythe. No joggers visible today, though, so for me it’s the loneliness of the (returning) long-distance runner.

If this was a film I’d cast a misty-eyed gaze up and down the road as a solemn piano melody carefully selected from the poignant flashback-alert bargain bin drifts slowly in. Then the music and I would be submerged beneath the sound of pounding feet, panting, talking, shouting, coughing, laughing, cheering, honking klaxons, clinking glasses and brass bands. Between banks of spectators overflowing with goodwill, a spring tide of humanity surges along the road, in the midst of which the camera picks out my impossibly handsome and athletic (this is a film remember) 28-year-old self, resplendent in full piratical beard and within a pace or eight of that year’s chief eccentric, a man who took piratical embellishment to a whole new level by running with a live macaw perched on his shoulder.

My mind is a blank reel in the real here and now, though, and no such nostalgic convergence of past self and present location occurs. In the film ‘Don’t Look Now’, after touching a Venice alleyway wall Donald Sutherland could say: ‘I know this place.’ I graze the wall of a corner house, but nothing registers; I am just clutching at bricks. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. There are plenty of iconic, tourist-magnet jewels dotted along the twisted necklace that is the London Marathon route but, worthy as little Surrey Docks Farm, the Lavender Road Nature Reserve and the Russia Dock Woodland Park are (and despite the sign for the latter bidding ‘welcome’ in eight languages), I doubt they yet qualify as such. And, having no work, family or friendship links with the area, I’ve had no occasion to revisit at all in the intervening 31 years.

But there’s another reason Memory Lane is closed off today. If I’d hit ‘the wall’ in the 1982 marathon, it wouldn’t have been made of the bricks I touched earlier. In 1982, this was a run-down area – but not by me, not quite here. Salter Road was a dotted line on a map, a twinkle in a planner’s eye. A distress of derelict docks, this was an area whose lifeblood, if not exactly drained away, was acutely anaemic. Enter the self-styled Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, and the hair-styled Michael Heseltine (the Iron Hair, perhaps?), her not-so-faithful sidekick. Unto them the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was born, upon which wise men from the east-of-centre politics bestowed gifts of unprecedented powers, the better that it may grow to perform the miracle of regeneration.

1982, of course, was the Year of the Yuppie. Yuppies were enterprising creatures who colonised the dark, riverside streets close to the city, surviving by sniffing out money from the most unlikely of places. Like urban foxes, they divided public opinion, sometimes causing nuisance by scattering their finds indiscriminately and leaving offensive refuse in their wake.  It was through close observation of their behaviour, though, that the astonishing discovery was made that what lesser creatures thought of as a mere home, was, in fact, the biggest money-sniffing opportunity of all. Thus was revealed to the LDDC the way to reverse years of decline that had seen the docks silent for a decade or more; invite the money-lenders back into the temple and replace no longer-commercial docks with newly-commercial residential props.

Though the area is still widely known as Surrey Docks, by the late 80s most of those docks had been, quite literally, buried. The signs for the residential streets erected in their stead are their headstones. I search Capstan Way, Nelson Walk, Ropemaker Road, Shipwright Road and Waterman’s Walk for the ghosts of maritimes past. (Cue more solemn piano music from the flashback bargain bin). Once, tall ships anchored here, disgorging the bounty of the empire into ‘the warehouse of the world’ and providing employment for all manner of tradesmen. I take in Norway Gate, Finland Street, Oslo Square and Bergen Road, Fir Trees Close, Mahogany Close and Teak Close, humming a famous Beatles song and conjuring up an image of deal porters stacking, Jenga-like, grand quantities of timber.

Preserving fish and meat imports was once the preserve of ‘salters’. Salter Road, though, owes its name to the memory of Dr. Alfred Salter. Damned by The Times when he stood locally as a Labour candidate in the 1918 election as ‘a highly educated idealist’ (which probably explains his defeat), he insisted on treating patients unable to afford medical fees, many dockers employed on the notorious ‘call-on’ system amongst them, for free. What he would’ve made of his name being celebrated by those marching to the Boudicca of privatisation’s drumbeat is anyone’s guess. Locals, though, have been known to complain of a loud whirring sound coming from the nearby cemetery.

Some relics of the past  –  a swing bridge, a capstan, a mooring chain, anchors, a cannon, even a large rusting derrick  –  have been left strewn along the Thames Path, an indictment of the then government’s beloved compulsory competitive tendering process, which worked like an auction in reverse and resulted in the final clean-up contract being awarded to the lowest bidder.

In contrast, nearby Stave Hill unashamedly testifies to the new. An artificial grassy mound fashioned from the rubble of the past standing on the old Russia Dock site, it affords great views of the glistening, glassy towers lining the Thames, the newest and tallest of which now offers great views that few can afford.

Of course, you don’t need to scale a hill to glimpse the Shard. Assuming any weather conditions other than a Dickensian smog, this year’s runners will see it gleaming in the distance from any number of vantage points, Salter Road among them, its urban eye of Sauron beckoning them forward as irresistibly as Mordor’s towers beckoned those brave hobbits.

These modern buildings owe their very existence to the visionary who, a decade or so ago, saw that the only way to assuage public (if not royal) fear of the new was an alliterative mission statement.  Certainly, I am comforted by the sign on the hoardings of a building site straddling Salter Road and Rotherhithe Street assuring us that the work is being undertaken by ‘Considerate Constructors’ intent on ‘Improving the Image of Construction.’ No doubt within those clapboard confines labour an army of bravura bricklayers, pleasant plasterers, placid plumbers, capable carpenters, glorious glaziers, scrupulous scaffolders and roofers of rectitude.

Later, strolling along the Thames Path, I see that this wisdom has spread to other enterprises. The Thames Clipper whizzing by is not merely ferrying passengers downriver to Greenwich, but also ‘Cutting Through Complexity.’ I reflect on this new word order, and wonder how anything was ever achieved in those unenlightened days of yore. I retrace my steps, passing The Clipper pub. Its proud advertising board boasts a variety of fresh teas, prompting me to wonder how the most famous tea clipper of them all, navigating these waters 150 years or so ago, managed to deliver its precious cargo without proclaiming that it was ‘Cutty Sarking through Complexity.’

This riverside skyline used to brim with tall masts and sails, the streets awash with seamen (a phrase better read than said).  Now, looking back downriver from the Hilton Hotel that stands on the old Nelson Dock, I see no ships. I fantasise about their future return, as the rising Thames reclaims the docks while climate change deniers stand atop Stave Hill, challenging the waves like latter-day King Cnuts.

Back on Salter Road, I return to 1982, remember the jumble of the elite, the good, the bad and the ugly running styles, the graceful gaits, the young, the aged and the ageless. I recall the brave souls running for charities, often in elaborate fancy-dress (take a bow, if your costume allows, pantomime rhinos) and feel guilty that, so worried was I that I might crumple under the weight of expectations alone, I sought no sponsorship.  This year, as the London Marathon again bestows upon this unprepossessing mile what my pedantometer tells me is considerably more than a Warholian 15 minutes of fame, will be no different. I fully expect to see anything from a pantomime rhino to another bearded pirate with a live macaw. But, hopefully, no cloaked, scythe-bearing man. And certainly no hobbits – they just haven’t got the legs for it.

Postscript

Past Running
Words by Tony Clarke

Panting, talking, coughing, laughing, I follow my wife and daughter and the conga line of humanity in front of them up the stairs of Surrey Quays Station and into the bright Sunday morning sunshine, serenaded this time, not by brass bands but by the competing sounds of a PA system and a live combo; Pet Shop Boys feat. Scottish Pipers.

A sighting of the well-appointed pub opposite prompts the first cheers of the day ( I can’t help myself). 9.30 am and it’s doing a roaring trade in full English pints, in unclinking glasses. We buy coffees and strike up a conversation with a young woman. She has the usual reason for being here; supporting a participating friend. The friend, however, just happens to be a guide for an elite blind Chilean paralympian. My wife fishes out the running schedule she’d downloaded from the official website that morning and gives the young woman the predicted time for the elite paralympian runners to pass this point. It proves pretty accurate and we all cheer wildly when she and her friend spot each other as he and his blind partner hurtle past, tethered arms perfectly synchronised. We marvel at their harmony and the courage it must take to run at speed in darkness. And, a little while later, at a guide running alone.

We ready our mobile phone cameras for the arrival of Mo Farah and the elite male runners and are still readying them when they blur past. I study the video of bare tarmac I have recorded and in my head paraphrase a line from an old 1960s’ Animals hit: ‘When I think of all the good times that I’ve wasted…..trying to capture good times on film.’

At 10.30 we succumb to the temptations of a full English and, plastic glasses in hand, head up the road to ‘my’ mile. The lack of public drinking stations on this stretch makes it ideal for runners’ drinking stations. Bottles of Lucozade are snatched, briefly glugged from, then swiftly discarded. I consider this a huge waste of energy drink. The grass verges resemble rolls of giant bubble-wrap, though I still cannot help feeling guilty adding my empty plastic glass to the mess.

It’s less well-populated in terms of spectators, so those of us there valiantly try to compensate by even more enthusiastic clapping and cheering. It seems such support is much needed by some. There is no shortage of Munch painting grimaces on show and we quickly learn that ‘Only 16 more miles to go’ does not work well as encouragement.

Many runners have their names on their vests, allowing us to personalise our vocal support. Often, said names are just below their chosen charities, which, in the case of some, seems like an unfortunate invitation to spectators to engage in a more tactile response: Stroke Emma, Stroke Dave. Hopefully, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls will have chosen a different charity. For some reason I think of him, and the potential benefits to his chosen charity, if not his career, had he the ……courage to emulate the two men who run past in curly black wigs and false moustaches and wearing, apart from trainers and socks, nothing else apart from pale green mankinis, pulled up, Borat – style, over their shoulders.

These brave, or brazen, men are a couple amongst many fancy dress costumes that, as ever, stick in the mind. Reliably, there are a dozen or so, impossibly heavy -looking rhinos. Bearded males in wedding dresses. A man wedged through the middle of a large plastic shark. A two-person pantomime camel. (Did they need to stop at any of the drinking stations, I wonder?). A couple of pirates, neither adorned with a live bird. (Close but no macaw). Someone with a sinister –looking costume, brandishing a plastic scimitar. Thankfully, not quite a cloak-wearing, scythe-bearing figure. And, as predicted, no hobbits.

Four hours or so in, the family Clarke have hit the clapping and cheering wall. We amble back towards Surrey Quays Station against the shuffling, staggering, strolling, struggling stragglers. Only 16 miles to go. Long may they – and the London Marathon itself – continue.

Sayes Court, Evelyn Street to Deal Porters Way by Tesco Extra

Evelyn and Me

Words and images by Roisin Clarke

“He that loves pleasure must for pleasure fall.” – Christopher Marlowe

They sometimes call a hangover a ‘beast behind the eyes’, but this one was different. This time, it felt as if one had stretched out and forced a claw into my right socket.

“Marlie,” Evelyn mumbles somewhere near my ear. “You awake?” I shift onto my side, knee the wall, and jerk backwards across the mattress. “Unnnggghhhh.”  My tongue broaches the subject of wine-gummed lips.

“Keep still a sec.” Her voice is replaced by a jostling sound and a descending chill. Bagged ice gently nudges puffed brow bone. Returning to sore consciousness, all I can think is: Whatever’s been at my face, it bloody hurts.

I retrieve my left arm from beneath the pillow only to have it flop, numb and useless, across my chest. All the while, the pain beats beneath the heat-throb of the ice and against the monster circling my eye. Keeping time, I clench life back into my hand. Sunlight stripes my torso and a mower buzzes across Sayes Court Park, three floors below.

Here it comes: That familiar rise to reality and drop into doom.

This is what I remember….

It’s the usual booze-soaked Friday night. The Overground sicks us up at Surrey Quays and spews us into the chicken shop.  A short while later, Will emerges triumphant with his greasy-boxed bounty and performs one of his pavement-kerb-bus-lane shuffles. Twisting into position, he holds the pickled cucumber aloft between thumb and forefinger, rocking on scuffed heels to get the angle right. The light-flecked skyscraper, near-black against the night sky, seems to mock Lower Road. “Shall I compare thee to an… architectural monstrosity?” He hisses, before he sensibly gives way to the 47 to Catford and re-mounts the pavement. I groan, turn my back on Will and his gherkins, and make for home.

A breeze nips out to greet us from Deptford Park and Nick flips up his collar, forcing curls of crow-coloured hair against his neck. He stops by the gate, produces some Golden Virginia and a battered Rizla from some hidden pocket and gets rolling. As soon as I see the baccy, I know I want a smoke. I’m supposed to be giving up… Ah…

“Let’s have one, Nick.”

Even with half his stupid hair blown across his face I can see he’s rolling his eyes along with  his cigarette, but he obliges anyway. The others haven’t seen us and move on ahead. Peering into the park to distract from the cravings, I pick out the ‘blue iridescence’ sculpture down the path. It’s meant to be asparagus – loads of it once grew around here. Shame it doesn’t now; I love the stuff. Still, there’s always Sainsbury’s.

That’s when I spot the papers. Skedaddling around the sculpture. Buoyed on the breeze. Snagged on the grass. Nick hands me my eagerly-anticipated rollie, as I bend to retrieve a sheet trapped in the railings at calf-height.

“What is it?” Nick’s voice catches slightly as he exhales, his second-hand smoke snatched by a similarly-addicted wind.

I smooth out the crumples and blink. “It’s some Shakespeare script, by the looks of things.” One of the corners is missing, and I can’t make out the words in the dark and drunk.

“They could’ve put it in the bin, the skanks.”

I crane forward to see if Will’s still about. He’s not. “Well, mate…” My voice drops as I send a swift elbow into Nick’s arm. “Not everyone likes recycling other people’s words.”

Passing the Black Horse, we’re tempted to stop for one last pint. An old bloke in a new Fred Perry eyes us from the doorway and Rob thinks better of it. “Millwall played today, mate. Best give it a swerve,” he says, guiding me away from the door as if I were an errant child drawn to a tethered dog. Further along and over the road, I trip over a box of soil shoved diagonal to the Pepys Estate. Someone’s scooped out the middle like some bastard who’s ripped out a girl’s heart, leaving her crying at the roadside. Never mind. I flex my stubbed toe, shake off thoughts best saved for sobriety and press ahead.

We always lose Will at Rolt Street, where he still lives with his mum. At the turning he kicks an empty Union Jack fruit box, before crowing “I have a dream” at the Martin Luther King graffiti above it and blundering out of sight. I don’t waste much time.

“See, the thing that… The thing that winds me up about Will, yeah – “

“- Mate, don’t start this again.” Fraser slaps a bent-double Coke can from the pillar by my block, sending it clattering into the road. I persist, drunkenly fumbling grudges into the conversation and my key into the front door.

“ – Lemme finish, Frase. He… He keeps bloody nicking my ideas. It’s like the minute I write something, the second I mention anything… He’s gone and done the same thing five seconds later. Know what I mean?”

“Seriously, mate. Just… Leave it, yeah?” Rob chimes in.

“Yeah, Marlie. Give it a rest.” Something in Fraser’s voice gives me pause, but I fill it – and my mouth – with oily, fatty chicken.

“Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing,” I conclude, distracted and defeated. We enter the hallway and take the lift to my floor in silence.  Once safely indoors, I head for the bedroom and collapse onto my mattress, shelling the heels of my shoes and kicking them aside. TV on, shoes off.

“Hung out to dry.” Fraser remains in the doorway, an unlit fag clasped and cocked between his lips.

“What, mate?” I gnaw the cork from an already-open bottle of claret and splash some into a dirty tumbler. Rob perches on the end of the bed, tipping Pringles into his lap.

“Was just thinking. That graffiti we saw just then. Funny, that. How it says ‘Hung out to dry.’”

“What you chatting about, Frase?” I plant my foot in the small of Rob’s back, sending his crisps skittering to the floor. He swears and swivels to pick up the pieces.

Fraser crosses to the bed and plants himself between me and Rob, obscuring my view of the TV. By now he’s all reds and pinks; blurred eyes and blotched cheeks. Sitting too close, like a weirdo on a night bus.

“That’s what you’ve done to me, mate. Hung me out to dry. You and Ev.”

“Alright, Fraser. We’d best be chipping off, yeah?” Nick’s back from the bathroom now and leaning against the jamb.

“Don’t know what you’re going on about, mate.” An easy lie.

“You know full well. You and Ev. A few weeks back, in the Vietnamese place – “

“What are you talking about? What Vietnamese place?” There I go again.

“Mate, don’t… Mama Pho’s, down the road. You and her. I saw you in there with her, Marlie.” He sways towards me, buries both fists in the mattress and hauls himself off the bed.

“- Come on, Frase.” Nick moves towards us, ready to pull us apart.

“-Yeah Nick, alright. Alright. Let’s get out of here. Just…” Fraser bats him away and braces himself against the wall. There’s a brief pause as he pulls himself up to full height. “You… You chat about Will nicking your stuff, but you’re a hypocrite, mate. Ahhh… Whatever.” His knee cracks as he makes for the door. Still sore from the run, perhaps.

Then come the famous last words:

“She’s just a… stupid… whore, anyway.”

This is where I forget.

“He says you hit him.” Back in the present, Ev’s still pressing ice against my eye socket. Cold melt water trickles and tickles at my skin, and a flash of blue and orange flickers into view. A drop reaches my lips: I taste a tang of metal, not unlike blood. A faint scent of prawns confirms that she’s multi-tasking: Soothing my injured face and defrosting a bit of dinner. There’s nothing else in the freezer, except perhaps that creepy Dafoe-voiced polar bear with the too-small eyes. Aye-aye, Cap’n Birdseye.

“Hit him?”

“Yes. Twatted him over the head with that stupid duck from over the mantelpiece. Twice. Then there was a fight, Rob says. Somehow, Fraser got you right above the eye with a satay skewer. Thank God Lewisham A&E’s still open, or we might’ve been in trouble.” With my remaining good eye, I scan her face and know with woozy certainty: She’s definitely worth hitting a mate with a duck figurine. And getting stabbed in the face afterwards. Ev smirks back, flicks her gaze over the bruising, and kisses me.

None of it matters but her. Not Fraser and our gone-forever friendship, not the duck or skewer, not the hours of oblivion in A&E, nothing. Only my Evelyn on Evelyn Street.

You know what, though? I could murder a Merlot right now.

Greenwich Church Street by the Gypsy Moth pub to Sayes Court, Evelyn Street

South of the River

Words by Gordon Kerr, read by Joe Shire, Film by Sean Kerr, edited by Olly Robertson, sound edited by Matthieu Lefort

Leof the Jute, c. 550

I loiter by the bend in the river’s crook,

Near where the Ravensbourne softens its flow,

Mud blurring its surface,

Oil bruising the sky’s reflection.

And I think of him stumbling ashore

At morning’s first blood,

Eyes wide, veins full,

Skin stripped from his soul.

‘Ho! Stay those oars that have widowed waves

And struck this barren strand,’ he might have called,

‘This place will welcome our ancestors

But here time will swallow our tooth-white bones

And make meaningless our lives.’

By evening’s chill

The water’s quiet glass breathed mist

And, as the riverbirds’ echoes faded,

Above the dank sail-shrouded shelter

Smoke began to cloud the mizzling air,

Flames adding grammar to the darkness

While stones, blushing in the heat

Beneath the whistling timbers,

Cracked like the skulls of enemies.

Huddled skin to skin at the water’s edge,

Souls singing for this new land,

They embraced their redemption, wept

And burned their boats.

Ayisha, 2013

A complexity of bells

Exhausts the sky of birds

Above the broken teeth

Of Lewisham’s slow yawn.

This is not her weather –

Outside, domed by a gabardine sky,

The rain is brittle, the wind sculpting

Angled figures in the polished streets.

As the morning drifts to its dreary conclusion,

Her mind grows wings;

She recalls the moonlight

Sprinkling like broken pearls

To the shadowed stones of an ancient city’s courtyards,

Its passages echoing with the whispers of dusty robes

And the sighs of bored calligraphers,

Discussing lost hours

While the evening fell in layers.

But, as the Sunday morning bells fade,

She sheathes his body yet again,

Eyes closed, the blood stopped in her veins.

An hour later, she stoops by the window

To pick up her discarded clothing

And, glancing out, she sighs,

Soul acquiescent, heart flown homeward

By the bird of lost spring

No longer.

Woolwich Road/Bugsby’s Way junction by Selco Builders’ Warehouse to Woolwich Road/Blackwall Lane by the Duchess pub

Have you seen this woman?

Words and images by Alan Whelan

April 2007

Dear Victor

I write now because time has passed and we have both grown. No longer must we meet secretly at the far side of the village. Do you remember those nights? I now live in England – you may see the stamp – and I work in an eating house. They say the famous London marathon runs past our door. I look forward to seeing the runners just like we used to run in Iten. It is cold here but I keep warm on the memories of our times together.

Duchess

April 2012

A man wearing a Charlton Athletic shirt leaned in the doorway of the Antigallican bar and smoked a cigarette. Victor indicated that he wished to enter but the man did not move. Victor waited for someone to leave the pub before he could step past. After ten minutes, when he finally caught the barman’s eye, he took out a small black and white photograph from his coat.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said. ‘Have you seen this woman?’

‘Not many of your kind in here, pal,’ he said, and shook his head.

Victor wrote carefully in his notebook: Antigallican – Enquired – Negative.

Further down Woolwich Road the Rose of Denmark was so full that men had to drink outside, some with a glass in each hand. Surely, Duchess would not bring herself to work in such a place. Still, he made his enquiries. Negative.

Next, the Pickwick B&B. Would Duchess take employment in an establishment with frosted windows? All games here live on the big screen, said the sign. Duchess hated football. He walked on by. Not Enquired – Possible Return.

One block west was Peter’s Fish Bar – Chinese food to take away. Next door was Peter’s Café. Peter is a man of means, certainly. He deserves my respect.

Victor opened the café door and silenced the roomful of men eating eggs and beans and toasted bread. He read the menu written large on the wall. Full English, double full English, full English with bubble, whatever that may be. The eating house was busy and Duchess liked to work. Perhaps.

He stepped up to the counter and waited for the man turning sausages to notice him.

‘Good day, are you Mister Peter?’ Victor asked.

‘In one,’ said the man.

Holding the photograph at chest height, Victor said, ‘May I ask you kindly, sir, have you seen this woman?’

‘Can’t help you, squire.’

‘Are you sure?’ Victor said. ‘Perhaps she has worked for you. Her name is Devine, but sometimes known as Duchess and she is a cook. A very fine cook.’

‘She’s not crossed my door,’ said the man called Peter.

A hundred metres on, Victor swung open the door to the York Café, which seemed to serve the same food as Peter’s Café. Why would an eating house cook breakfast all day? Nobody there had seen her.

Across the road, on the side of a house, was a billboard showing a black man advertising a sandwich. Subway, where winners eat, it said. London is a wonderful city that it can venerate a black man many times life-size. Standing before the billboard, Victor felt his shallow well of hope swell for the first time that day. With renewed optimism, he stepped into Chick ‘n’ Curries.

‘Have you seen this woman? She is called Devine or Duchess,’ he said.

‘Make up your mind,’ said the woman at the counter. ‘Which one is it?’

Victor knew that was not a question.

At a busy corner he stood under a sign for Blackwall Tunnel and waited for six lanes of traffic to allow him to cross the road. It reminded him of his time as a boda boda rider when he had to make his own space. He took his chances. On the concrete island halfway across he looked north and saw a number of huge struts supporting a dome half the size of his village. What must occur under that dome? The people of London must be proud of such an astonishing building.

The Angerstein Hotel was full of lunchtime diners. Inside, a man was pumping beer into a pint glass.

Victor asked, ‘Do you know a woman called Duchess?’

‘Now that’s a name to conjure with,’ said the man.

‘Please look at this photograph.’

‘No luck, my friend.’

Beyond the hotel he noticed a sign for East Greenwich Library: A Gift From Andrew Carnegie. To give a book is a gift for life, but to give a building in which to house them will truly never be forgotten. Closed Wednesdays.

His search made him hungry in the middle of the day, so it was best to take some time away from the eating houses. Inside the library Victor sat down at a desk, put his hand in his trouser pocket and counted out his money. Mentally, he divided the total into the potential number of days left of his search: twenty-one, at the outside. He scanned the shelves and chose a book. He opened it and began to read A Tale of Two Cities.

That afternoon he found the next two restaurants closed and shuttered. He logged them in his notebook. Greenwich Tandoori + Sensura Japanese Cuisine – Closed – Possible Return.

The GMT Café served eggs and bacon, a popular choice in this neighbourhood. Negative. A food counter called Kam Hong was full of Chinese so it was unlikely Duchess had ever worked there. The men in the Millennium Charcoal Grill Kebabs spoke little English and displayed photographs of their food, in case customers did not know what chicken and kebabs looked like. Then came New Hong Kong Garden, Millennium Pizza & Chicken, Morley’s Mmmm It Tastes Better, Mr Fast Fry, Wing Wah Buffet and Chinese Family. All Negative.

He took a rest at the seat outside the Greenwich Café. A woman came out, looked at the picture, said, ‘No black lady work here,’ and then asked him to move on if he wasn’t going to order anything.

He poked his head around the smashed door of the Curry Royal Tandoori. Negative. Victor then stepped up to the Old Friends, a pub that was once a Free House. Now it was not free to anybody, but derelict and boarded up.

According to the internet printout, he had reached the end of the sixth mile and his sixth day of searching. He should walk back to his hostel. Then, as if mocking him, on the adjacent corner Victor saw a sign: Welcome to the Duchess Bar.

Shall I save my luck for tomorrow? No. He pushed on the dirty brown door.

There was a young woman behind the bar with red hair and a stud in her nose. Victor took out the photograph.

With no more than a cursory glance at the picture, the woman turned her head and called, ‘Devine!’

The sound of the name, sounding like a curse in the mouth of this young woman, shocked him. His immediate thought was to admonish her, but before he could utter a word she kicked the swing door into the kitchen and yelled once more, ‘Devine! There’s a man.’

Devine Koech Kiplagat looked through the glass panel into the bar. By the time Victor caught her eye she was already crying. He dropped the photograph into a spill of beer on the bar and went to her.

‘Victor! You have come!’ said Devine.

He took out her letter from his coat pocket and opened it flat.

‘You said the marathon would run past,’ he said.

She dried her hands on a tea towel and read her own letter.

She said, ‘How long have you been searching?’

‘Six miles, my Duchess. But also my whole life.’

Devine paused for a moment, then said, ‘Perhaps I do not wish to be found.’

Victor took a second to register what she said and invited her to sit. She dabbed her eyes then placed the towel on a table.

‘Why did you run away to this city of a hundred nationalities?’ he asked.

‘We are both Kalenjin,’ she said. ‘We were born to run.’

Victor put his hand on top of hers.

‘But the real reason?’ he asked.

‘You were happy with Therese and it was best I leave. Your wife –’

‘I have a sad story,’ said Victor. ‘She had the wasting disease.’

‘TB?’

‘Perhaps. I am alone once more.’

‘I am alone also, and washing dishes at the Duchess.’

They both smiled.

She said, ‘Sometimes it is easier to run away from something.’

‘We could have run together.’

April 2013

‘It is wonderful, Victor,’ said Devine. ‘Look how the crowd cheers for us! And the sun! It reminds me of Kenya. We have only reached the sixth mile and some runners have already given up.’

‘You cannot give up a race once you have begun,’ said Victor.

‘Never! Even after six years.’

‘Six years or twenty-six,’ said Victor, ‘I would have found you.’

Woolwich Church Street/Prospect Vale junction to Woolwich Rd/Bugsby’s Way junction by Selco Builders’ Warehouse

Three scenes

Words by Malcolm Blythe, illustration by Daire O’Herlihy

About half way through their fifth mile, runners will pass Maryon Park in Charlton. In the mid-60’s the park and streets nearby were locations in the film ‘Blow Up’.

1. Fizzer and me

Varney’s Dad worked for the Council, and he’d told Varney that they were making a film in the park. Me and Fizzer went up at dinner time.

There were loads of blokes around the gates, telling people it was closed. But we knew all the places you could get in.

Fizzer said it was a war film.

“You’re just making that up, you berk.”

“No I’m not”, said Fizz. “It’s got to be a war film. How could they make a Western here? Doesn’t look anything like America.”

He had a point.

They’d put guards on the bridge so we sneaked through the woods and down to the railway. I never liked crossing the tracks. Two years ago Taylor’s little brother was playing hide and seek there and he got hit by a train.

We hid under a hawthorn bush. It was exciting. We felt like spies. Or Indian scouts. There they all were, a hundred yards away. A bunch of men, talking. No soldiers. Or cowboys. Off to the left there was a tent full of women, chatting.

“Where are the soldiers?”

“Dunno. Maybe they’re getting ready.”

“Can you see anyone famous?”

“No.”

“So what are those blokes doing?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a film being made before.”

“Where’s the camera?”

“Just shut up and watch, Fizzer!”

After a bit – well, after ages – two men walked towards us. We shrank under the trees. They were pointing at things and talking quickly in a foreign language, louder and louder until they were shouting.

“D’you think that’s part of the film?”

“I dunno. It’s good acting if it is.”

“It’s just two geezers arguing, I reckon.”

The younger bloke walked away, still yelling. The other one took a cigar out of his tweedy jacket. In a minute, even though he was fifty yards off, the breeze carried the smoke towards us. It stank.

“Fizz.”

“What?”

“When you grow up, I mean when you’re older, are you going to smoke?”

“Dunno. Are you?”

“‘Course I am.”

“I tried once.”

“When?”

“Half-term. In Woolwich churchyard. I was sick.”

“You poofter!”

“Varney was sick as well.”

There was the distant drone of a plane, then the mad twittering of birds.

“Do you think you’ll get married?”

I saw Fizzer swivel his eyes towards the tent with the women. He grinned.

“Probably.”

A squirrel scuttled down from a birch tree and Fizz threw an acorn at it.

“This film’s crap.” he said “It’s not about anything.”

“No.” I agreed.

“I saw frogs down Gilbert’s Pit the other day. Let’s go and catch some.”

The film people were in the park for another week. Fizzer and me didn’t go back.

***

2. Jonny and Frankie

“Yeh, I know all that Frank, dunneye.

Jonny Howmuch pauses to suck, emphatically, on his Hamlet, and then exhales, plosively.

“‘Ee orways knows what ‘ee wants, dunnee? ‘Ee knows egg-zackly wot ‘ee wants, and no dickin’ abaht. ‘Zackly. Eh, Frankie?”

Francis sighs.

“He just doesn’t seem to have any grasp of how long it takes. Or how much it’ll cost. You couldn’t do my job, Jonny. It’d drive you nuts.”

Francis is buckled against the back wheel of the lighting truck, elbows on knees, hands cupped over his brow against the sun.

He doesn’t mind sitting on the ground. He‘s given up any notion of staying dapper. His desert boots are knackered and he tore his jacket on the first day. But the overtime is fantastic: a whole new wardrobe awaits.

“Well, I dunno, Frankie-boy. Snot my Department, son. I’ll be honest wiv yer, Frank. I wasn’t lookin’ forward to vis. What wiv the Eyeties and that, the Italians. Not after what my Dad told me about the war. ‘Ee ‘ad a terrible time, my Dad. Shockin’. But, sayin’ that, I’ll be honest wiv yer …”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Francis feels a heaviness descend, as if the warmth of the sun is gradually melting his body into the side of the truck.

“…bladdy awright, as it ‘appens, int they? Turns aht they’re bladdy awright…”

Jonny’s voice becomes the lulling sound of waves breaking as Francis is borne away, lying in a small rowing boat. A gull keens, wheeling overhead.

“Frank! The radio crackles. “Come in Frank, Right away, old chap. Need some help up here.”

Francis starts. Suddenly awake.

Jonny stops. Mid-flow. Frozen, Hamlet poised elegantly between drag and tap. His eyebrows arch, eyes popping, mouth now quiet in an ‘o’ of feigned surprise.

“Jesus!” Francis rolls onto his side. “What now?”

“They probberly found some more trees need painting green, aint they? More trees. Or the fences. You missed some, dintcha? Ey? That’s probberly it, Frankie-boy. More trees and fences. Fallin’ dahn on the job, intcha? I toldja, dint I? ‘Ee knows ‘zackly what ‘ee wants.”

Jonny is smirking. In the friendly but fierce rivalry on set it’s always funny to see someone else get a bollocking.

“It’s the paths, innit? You probberly used the wrong shade of black on the paths, dintcha? Ooooh, Frankie-boy. Thass bad news, innit? How long did it take you and your mob to paint them paths? Ages, wunnit? Ve ‘ole fing’s gotta be re-done, hannit? Ve whole fing, probberly. You better do it proper vis time Frankie.  Cos ‘ee knows egg-zackly what ‘ee wants. Very ‘zacting, ‘ee is.

Francis pushes his hair back in exasperation. He knows Jonny’s right. This’ll be funny one day. But not right now.

“Give it a rest, Jonny. They probberly just want more of that bloody smoked glass. I bet you.”

“How much?” says Jonny.

***

3. Val

Val looked at the small stack of memos sitting to the left of her typewriter and decided she could stretch them out until lunchtime without drawing attention to herself. She could easily have done them in twenty minutes, but what was the point? It wasn’t as if she’d get paid more if she did them quicker.

Val had been in the typing pool at AEI for three months. She missed town, but this was handy – just fifteen minutes from her Mum and Dad’s house. And she still spent the weekends up west. Sometimes she stayed with her friend Grace. Grace’s dad was rich. She had an allowance, a tiny flat in Chelsea and a terrific job in an advertising agency, where she didn’t have to do much.

On Saturdays they’d go shopping and sit in coffee shops in Soho or the King’s Road. Some nights they’d go to a club. Grace knew loads of people and Val tagged along.

At twelve thirty, Miss MacReadie, the supervisor, announced:

“Ladies, that’s lunch. Please be sure you are back, seated at your desks at one-thirty, sharp.”

Miss MacReadie wore the same clothes every day: tweed suit, twin-set with pearls and glasses shaped like a carnival mask. Val liked Miss MacReadie. She was from Perth, and had a soft Scottish voice like a glass of warm milk.

Val’s Mum always made her sandwiches, and when the weather was nice she’d eat them in the park.

The last few days had been interesting. They were making a film. They’d taken over Mr. Llewellyn’s shop, where she’d sometimes buy Vimto and a Penguin as a treat.

Mr Llewellyn wouldn’t tell her how much he’d made but he did say he was taking Mrs. Llewellyn to see her sister in Llandudno for a week.

They’d put up loads of scaffolding, too. At first Val thought it was to do with the new flats but one day a strange sign had appeared. It looked sort of Russian, in that acrylic lettering. Was that it? No. CYRILLIC. Joy from the typing pool said it was lit up the other night.

As she walked up Tamar Street a crowd tumbled out of The White Horse. She knew by the way they talked they were film people. The girls were stick-thin and the boys had high cheekbones and floppy hair. A woman in a checked shirt shoved past. Blimey. Val suddenly recognised her. Vanessa Redgrave. She was taller than Val thought, even with flat shoes.

As Val reached the gates a man stopped her.

“Sorry, Miss. The park’s closed for filming.” He had a posh voice.

“What do you mean, closed? I go every day to eat my sandwiches.”

“Not today.”

”Why not?”

“Sorry, Miss. We’ve got a permit. From the Council.”

“I think that’s a blooming cheek.”

Val became aware that the other film people were staring. She felt her face flush.

“I’m going to write to my MP. We pay rates, we do!” she said, turning to walk back down the hill.

She imagined the film people looking at her as she retreated. Despite her show of indignation, she actually felt a bit jealous. Vanessa Redgrave. Who’d have thought?

***

Hillreach/Pelipar Road junction to Woolwich Church Street/Prospect Vale junction

One and one

Words by Kate Baxter, images by Matt Baxter

Wednesday April 24^th, 7:08pm
At the head of the line is Martin, one of the senior boys. Then Sam, who was born exactly 100 days before Jamie. Then Lee. Lee is new. Jamie remembers the first time Lee’s name appeared in the roll call – like a gravy stain in the middle of a clean school shirt. He’s used to it now.

The Detachment Commander is talking about community. Jamie is usually apprehensive about new projects. But this one is something to do with old people – and Jamie likes old people. They don’t shove or fight, all swinging limbs and scabs. They don’t speak too loud. They often have mints.

The Commander wants to know: who else?

Jamie raises his hand. Behind him, a boy guffaws.

‘Jamie? You’re volunteering?’

‘Yes sir.’

Jamie smoothes his tie, and shines the toe of his right shoe on his left trouser leg. Although his uniform is exactly right, he feels very different to the other boys in the hall.

9.02pm
Jamie leaves the Detachment. Other boys hurtle past, heads bobbing beneath the razor-wire, voices ringing like pennies rattling down a drainpipe.

Jamie passes the Spice Rack, which ‘specialises in balti and tandoori’. This is Jamie’s favourite building. He likes the juxtaposition: two storeys of crumbling red brick, scrolls of faded, faux-Georgian glamour, perched on top of the black plastic sign with its ketchup-red shutter. Jamie thinks both parts are right in their own way – you just wouldn’t think they go together.

He doesn’t notice the plastic bottle arcing across the road and swooping toward his cheek. He hears shouting, laughing, and the sound of pounding feet before he feels any pain.

Saturday April 27^th, 12:29pm
Was that the doorbell? Damn thing, Bill can hardly tell. Either the batteries are going, or it’s his hearing aid again. He leans like an old battleship, one hand on the woodchip as he moves down the hall. Opening the door, he comes face to face with a stiff, pale boy of about twelve, thirteen.

‘Hello,’ he says.

The boy delivers a practised speech: ‘I’m Cadet Jamie Walters, of 97 Cadet Detachment, South East London Army Cadet Force. I’ve come to clear your garden. And keep you company.’

Bill raises his wiry eyebrows, then smiles. He notices a woman in a parked car, twisting a strand of her hair. Must be mum. Bill nods subtly to her, not wanting to embarrass the boy by acknowledging his chaperone. He turns his twinkling eyes to the boy.

‘Well, that’s great. Jamie, you say? Come on in.’

Bill waves to the woman as he closes the door.

‘Looking at me now,’ Bill says, hovering around the toppled wall, ‘you wouldn’t believe what good nick I used to be in. A runner, I was. Long distance. You like running?’

Jamie works, taking pieces of brick from the bottom of the garden to the skip. Bill notices that, even when he can carry more, the boy only ever takes two at a time.

‘No,’ says Jamie.

‘I once ran the London marathon in three and a half hours. These days, I can just about run a bath, hey?’ Bill chuckles. He savours the sensation of talking. Or of someone listening.

Jamie looks blank.

After an hour, Bill tells Jamie to come inside and have a rest. He encourages the boy to sit in the comfy chair by the window, and proffers a plate of clumsily-arranged biscuits. Odd as the company is, Bill is glad of it.

Bill explains that he doesn’t have family nearby. His son, Paul, moved to Australia, and now has a family of his own on the other side of the world. They speak on the phone, sometimes. A lot of Bill’s friends have died now. Jamie mainly says yes, no, and goodbye.

3:12pm
Back home, Jamie’s mother congratulates him: he’s very kind, giving up his time, and Bill must be very grateful. She’s very, very proud.

Jamie is busy thinking. 26 miles, three and a half hours. That’s 7.43 miles an hour. Which is 0.12 miles a minute. Which is 0.002 miles a second.

Monday 13^th May, 8:23am
Jamie’s mum pulls up outside the shop that used to be the Queen Victoria – budget-newsagent-base, crowned with two bemusing floors of mock-Tudor monochrome – and goes inside.

From the passenger seat, Jamie notices Lee, the most recent addition to the South East London Army Cadet Force. He’s running down the pavement with some boys Jamie doesn’t recognise, howling and jostling.

How many friends do people usually have? Three? Four? Forty-four? And how do they even go about finding friends? Jamie knows he had a friend at Sunday school once – a boy called Charlie – but really, they were only friends because their mums were friends. Charlie used to hide Jamie’s mittens, and Jamie used to flinch at Charlie’s filthy fingernails.

It’s not easy for Jamie to think about. He finds it easier to imagine a network, a grid stretching out behind his eyes. He imagines having five friends. If they all had five friends, including him, he’d have twenty friends-of-friends. Twenty five people altogether. Count the friends-of-friends-of-friends too, and you get to a hundred and five. Jamie pictures each as a glowing dot, golden links between them. A hundred and five. Jamie imagines that’d be enough people for a very successful birthday party, or a barbeque.

As they drive down Hillreach, Jamie thinks he might have spotted Bill: a single dot in his window, sitting in his too-hard armchair and gazing at the outside.

Monday 20^th May, 5.29pm
‘I didn’t expect to see you today,’ grins Bill, squeezing the life out of a Yorkshire teabag. ‘I thought you’d be out playing football, or something.’

‘Not today,’ says Jamie, fiddling with a spoon. He talks more these days. ‘Bill, when you were at school, how many friends did you have?’

Bill rubs his bristly chin. ‘Oh, I’ve no idea. There was a gang of us, used to hang around the old school rugby pitch. Maybe fifteen, twenty of us.’ He pauses. ‘Do you have a best friend?’

Jamie wonders if he should say Lee.

‘I’ve got my mum.’

Bill puts an extra sugar in Jamie’s mug, and cuts him a very big slice of lemon drizzle cake.

Saturday 1^st June, 1:26pm
Bill is frequently surprised and amused by his visitor. Today, the two sit outside in the garden on plastic garden furniture, with glasses of strong orange squash.

‘Were you good at school?’ Jamie asks.

‘I was good at getting into trouble,’ Bill winks. ‘Not like you, I hope?’

Jamie thinks. ‘I don’t get into trouble with the teachers, anyway.’

Bill smiles, and stretches out his slippered feet.

Jamie asks: ‘Why don’t you go to Australia and live with your son?’

‘Australia? Oh no! There’d be nothing for me to do. I’d get under everyone’s feet. Besides, it’s too hot. And they have big hairy spiders that wouldn’t agree with me at all.’ He refills Jamie’s glass.

‘Have you ever been?’ asks Jamie.

‘No,’ replies Bill.

‘How much is a plane ticket?’

‘Not sure. 850 pounds?’

‘You could save up, like I do with my pocket money. £5 a week. You’d do it in 170 weeks.’

Bill chuckles, impressed.

There’s a pause. ‘You know,’ says Jamie, ‘if your son is in Melbourne, he’s 10,496 miles away.’

Bill’s eyes become wide.

‘That far? Crikey. That’s a long way.’

‘If you ran, like you ran the marathon, you’d be there in 1,413 hours. That’s just under 59 days. So, less than two months.’

Jamie smiles, triumphant.

Bill is silenced. The numbers, so deftly handled, take his breath away. Christ, what a world. He feels small – like a minnow at the end of an endless, winding fishing line.

‘These days, it might take me a bit longer,’ he murmurs.

For a while, neither speaks.

Then, Jamie: ‘I overheard my mum say to Doctor Fryer that I sometimes seem far away. As if she can’t reach me.’

Bill turns to the boy. He wants to hug him like he would hug his grandson – a child, distant, desperately missed.

Jamie continues. ‘I thought that was odd, because I was only in the kitchen at the time.’

Bill stops, then flings back his head, creasing his leathery cheeks with laughter.

‘Jamie,’ he says, wiping his eyes. ‘You’re a very special boy. I bet your mum is very special too. Stay close to one another, and you’ll be OK.’

On the way home, Jamie thinks about what Bill said. He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. But he takes his mum’s hand, and squeezes it. As she squeezes back, her eyes shimmer.

3 The Village, B210 by the Co-op to Hillreach/Pelipar Road junction

MacArthur’s Monsters

Words by Chris Martin, Illustration by Anna Hughes

A 26 miles story for little kids and big monsters.

There was once a little boy, called MacArthur.

He was so little, that everyone called him Little MacArthur.

When he was eight, his family moved from Scotland to a house on Thorntree Road, in Charlton.

He was worried about fitting in at his new school. He was so worried that he did not try to make any new friends, so he had no-one to play with.

He would still watch the other boys and girls, and hear them telling each other stories. They would talk about a big race called the ‘Marathon’ that goes past every year, or about the parks around the school.

Every day Little MacArthur took the bus to school. But one day he missed the bus, and that meant he had to walk through Maryon Wilson park to get to school. When he reached the crossroads in the middle of the park, he heard a sound…

And he saw a sight…

And he knew, right away, that there really were monsters in the park.

(He knew how to spot monsters because he was from Scotland, where they have Nessie and whil’o’the’whisps and wild haggis.)

That day they were learning about local history with his very cool teacher, Mrs. Guild.

‘Before they built the big house and the village here, there were woods all around, and monsters used to live within those woods...,’ said Mrs. Guild, in a very cool voice.

‘They were the fastest monsters anyone had ever seen. The local people used to race the monsters, but they never won.’

‘The people and the monsters lived in harmony. The monsters would deliver messages for the people, and the people would make delicious porridge, which the monsters loved to eat.

‘But now there are no more forests, and any monsters that might have been around here must certainly have run away. Plus no-one eats porridge around here anymore.’

But Little MacArthur, who ate porridge every day for breakfast and who had seen a monster that morning, thought differently.

The next morning he slipped some of his breakfast porridge into a cup and hid it in his schoolbag. Then he missed the bus on purpose, and set off into the park. When he reached the crossroads in the middle of the park, he did not keep going to school.

Instead, he stepped off the path and walked towards the bushes where he had seen the monster, his porridge held out in front of him.

Deeper and deeper into the green and brown he walked, until he couldn’t see the path anymore. Just as he started to feel a little scared, and a little silly, he heard them again.

They were close.

‘Who are you?’ Asked the monster, in a voice which sounded like leaves rustling.

‘I’m little MacArthur’, said little MacArthur, in a quiet voice which sounded even more scared than he felt.

‘Hello Little MacArthur. Is that porridge for me and my family?’ said the monster, in a voice like a tree branch slowly breaking.

‘Ye…ye…yes, of course’ said Little MacArthur, feeling littler than ever.

‘Bring it closer,’ said the monster, sounding hungry.

So Little MacArthur gave the monster the porridge, and there was a sound like a shoe being slowly pulled out of gloopy mud,

‘ssshhhhllloooooooooooop!’

‘Yum yum. Why are you here with this delicious porridge?’

‘I wanted to see if you were real, and I wanted to see if you were as frightening as the children in my new school,’ said Little MacArthur, felling less scared.

‘As frightening as children? Whatever do you mean? We are monsters. We are made to frighten and worry. But mostly we are made to go fast.’

‘I am not like the other children,’ explained Little MacArthur. ‘I sound different and I have been to different places and I don’t understand their stories. They scare me.’

‘But if they scare you, how can you play with them?’

‘I don’t,’ said Little MacArthur sadly.

‘Oh. But playing is fun. I insist you join our game of hide’n’seek. To prove you understand monsters, I shall not tell you what my family look like. You will have to find them without any help.’

‘OK,’ said Little MacArthur, starting to feel worried again. And so he looked and looked and looked. (Not knowing what the monsters looked like made it very hard to find them).

Eventually he found the monster’s mum, who looked like a creaky gate sounds, and was hiding behind a bench.

Then he found the monster’s dad, who looked more like the sound of a fridge door closing, who was up a tree pretending to be a bird.

He found the littlest monster in one of the litter bins, singing a little song to a fizzy drink can she found. Her song was kind of like the splash of a rubber duck hitting bathwater.

But Little MacArthur could not find the last monster anywhere. He searched and searched and searched. It was getting late, and he was really late for school. He decided to give up.

He went back to the monsters to tell them he must not understand them, when just before he reached their den, he saw something sticking out from behind a tree.

It was the long, pointy nose of a boy monster, swaying in the wind like a twig. He ran over and introduced himself to the monster, who looked like new shoes sound, and they all went back to the den for porridge.

And so MacArthur began playing with monsters.

Every morning he would ask his mum for extra porridge, sneaking it into his school bag. Then he would stop off in the park to give the porridge to the monsters.

Then every night, rather than coming straight home, he would run as fast as he could into the park, where he would play a quick round of hopscotch with Little Monster or play noughts and crosses with Daddy Monster.

This made MacArthur very happy, but he was still a little sad that he couldn’t share his new friends. But the monsters had explained:

‘Most people don’t really like monsters, thanks to lots of silly movies and books made by people who don’t even like porridge.’

So MacArthur had all the friends he needed, and that was that.

But the boys and girls at his school still wanted to be his friends. You see they didn’t mind his voice, in fact they thought it was really cool, like someone from a movie. Almost every day one of them shouted …

‘Come play with us!’

… but every day he would be so tired from his time with the monsters and so shy about his voice that he would always say no.

One day the monsters were away visiting family, so he decided to give playing with the other boys and girls a try. Because he played with monsters every day, Little MacArthur wasn’t scared of much these days.

He joined in with a game of football with the boys and girls at lunchtime. It was lots of fun, and he even scored a goal!

It was just like playing with the monsters, and even if these boys and girls didn’t like porridge, they were still lots of fun.

MacArthur decided he would ask the monsters to come to school with him so they could all play together. So the next day he went into the park to ask the monsters to come out.

‘The boys and girls at school aren’t scary at all!’ he explained, ‘They are just like me.’

But the monsters were all too scared to leave their safe, dark park. This upset MacArthur, because he didn’t want his friends to feel scared like he used to. So he came up with a plan…

He went home and told his mum that he wanted to dress up for the Marathon, which was the next week, and that he wanted to be… a monster!

The next day, he went back to his new friends at school and explained that they must dress up as monsters too, and come to the park with him on Marathon day.

On the day of the marathon there were people in fancy dress everywhere in Charlton, and right in the middle was a big group of little monsters following MacArthur.

He took his new friends down into the park, and they walked right into the den of the monster family.

‘Who are all these new monsters?’ they asked, very excited to meet more monsters like themselves.

MacArthur took off his mask and explained ‘These are not monsters, just children who want to play with you in Charlton Park.  Because everyone is in costumes, no-one will realise that you are real monsters!

The monsters thought this was a wonderful plan, and they all went out and watched the Marathon run past. Once the last of the runners had gone, they went to Charlton park and they played and played and played all day.

They even had a race of their own around the park. The monsters won.

At the end of the day everyone surrounded MacArthur and said a great big…

‘THANK YOU!’

Because without him the children would still be scared of the monsters, and the monsters would still be scared of the children.

Thanks to him they were now all friends.

From then on, Macarthur always had someone to play with.

The End

Vanbrugh Park/Mycenae Road junction to 3 The Village, B210 by the Co-op

Charlton Road

Words and images by Cle Morse-Privett

Amelie stood on the bridge. She didn’t really want to be there at all. It was far too early to be out in the cold. She looked at the lanes of cars rushing past below. Then further into the distance. Down to the Docklands and the Thames. The cars were dizzying in their speed, and they were all on the wrong side of the road. It felt as alien as water swirling the wrong way down a plughole.

She still hadn’t come to terms with how fast things moved in London. Even the people moved too quickly. But the days, for her, moved slowly.

Eventually, in the freezing haze of the too-bright-too-British morning, her eyes settled on the road signs below. To the O2 and Peckham and Central London. And to Dover.

Amelie hadn’t learned much about Britain in her 22 years, but she knew all about Dover. It meant white cliffs. Bluebirds. Dover sole. The British loved that, sole. But sole and soul weren’t the same thing in English. That ‘u’ made all the difference.

Most of all, Dover meant over the sea to home.

She’d arrived at St Pancras three months ago, wide-eyed, her violin strapped to her back. It was fair to say she’d liked what she’d seen. All red brick and arches, dappled light and Gothic grandeur. She’d wondered who’d built it. If first impressions were anything to go by, London would be, well… it’d be okay.

For three months now she’d called Charlton Road her home. Sharrrl-ton Rod. She repeated it softly to herself this morning, as she made her way to the bus stop. It had been nice here once. She could tell that from the houses. She walked past a row of Victorian shops, steel-fronted and given over to electrical suppliers. Today it was busy and bleak and full of raucous kids on their way to school. She reckoned it might just smell the same as it did back then though. The brisk assault of river air never really changes, does it? She missed the sunflower fields more than ever.

……….

Michael had been driving the 44 up and down Charlton Road to Greenwich for going on twenty years. He’d taken the job when his daughter was just about toddling, and he knew the route almost as well as he knew what the freckles on her nose looked like.

He always felt he’d let himself down when he drove past his great-grandfather’s house. English Heritage had decided that William Henry Barlow had done well enough in life to posthumously get himself a blue plaque. So every day Michael drove back and forth past that blue plaque and his great-grandfather’s white villa. Three generations later, and he’d ended up with a red-brick terrace further up the road. And a red bus.

Amelie spotted his bus on the other side of the road. It was her bus, and she couldn’t be late for rehearsal. Not today.

………

Nothing surprised him on his route any more. Not the bends in the road. And certainly not the way the sunlight fell on the red wooden slats of Poplar Cottage in the spring. The seventeenth-century cottage looked so out of place on the busy road. But he was used to it now, just as he was used to the twinge of inadequacy he felt when he drove past his great-grandfather’s house this morning. But one thing did surprise him today. And it surprised him too late.

Somewhere behind him, a baby cried. The shrillness was vivid; it beat his eardrums like a symphony. It was all he could hear as he stepped from the bus. Was the engine still running? He didn’t know. He could feel his own hands at his side. They were the only things that were real now.

Amelie thought of Mahler’s 9th and the sunflower fields. The petals on a sunflower are the same shape as the windows in St Pancras, you know, and the man who built it had lived just there. Such blinding clarity. Everything so real, just for a moment. Yellow and red and blue and a soft, soft humming. Her mother kissing her on the cheek before school. She closed her eyes.

He looked down and saw her. A beautiful young girl about the same age as his daughter. Freckles too. But her head was the colour of the bus. A violin lay splintered on the road, and leaves of sheet music whipped in little whirlwinds like hellish tumbleweeds in some fucked-up Western. Delicate white hands with grazed knuckles gripped a book: The History of St Pancras Station.

And then, nothing on Charlton Road moved.

……….

When the time came, he knew what he had to do. So he stood on the bridge and knew he wanted to be there. For a while he’d thought about visiting the Clifton Suspension Bridge. His great-grandfather had built that too. So it made sense to him, you see, since she’d been reading about St Pancras. There was a pleasing synchronicity in that which somehow seemed more correct than anything he’d actually done in the past 57 years. But there was also a pleasing synchronicity about Charlton Road, and so he stood on the bridge this morning.

He couldn’t forget her face. That was the hardest part. Or the book in her hands. That fucking book. Of all the things for a French girl to be reading. For any girl to be reading.

So he stood on the bridge, and knew that’s where he should be. It was far too early to be out in the cold, but it didn’t matter now, and it still felt right. He looked down at the cars below. And further along too. Down to the Docklands, and along the Thames. Everything was right today, and he smiled.

He’d always admired the speed of London. But sometimes things moved too fast. He knew that now. The years, on the other hand, had moved too slowly since that day. But he’d be quick this morning. He couldn’t be late – he’d never been late in all his 22 years on the buses. Not yet.

Everything was so real, just for a moment. Yellow and red and a blue plaque on a white villa. The soft, soft humming of the traffic below and his mother kissing him on the cheek before school. He smiled again and closed his eyes.

Nothing moved on Charlton Road.

Great Cross Avenue/Bower Avenue to Vanbrugh Park/Mycenae Road junction

A name perpetual and fame permanent and immortal?

Words by Claire Falcon, images by Mark Noad and John Bryson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkb_g5QME5Q&feature=youtu.be