Gillian Slovo - Ten Days

Camera stills 0578/19537–41

time stamp: 18:30:51–18:40:12

location: 200 yards south of Rockham police station

subject: communication between senior officer and representatives of the demonstrators

Officer attempts to address the demonstrators but appears to be rebuffed. Officer walks back behind the roadblock and into Rockham police station.

Submission 573/A/6: photographic evidence gathered by Air Support Unit 27AWZ, call sign India 95, between 18:40 and 18:46 hours on pertaining to the appearance of the bus ARL VLW 96 on the scene

Camera still 0578/19627

time stamp: 18:40:03

location: northerly roadblock

subject: movement of traffic

Bus ARL VLW 96 stationary at the northern roadblock. The driver is out of his cab and talking to one of the police officers whose hand is in the air and twisted to one side as if describing to the driver the process by which he can turn round in the road. Beyond the roadblock the line of traffic is blocking the bus’s exit.

Camera still 0578/19628

time stamp: 18:45:12

location: northerly roadblock

subject: movement of traffic

In trying to turn, the bus has mounted the pavement and is facing a wall. Passengers disgorge from the stationary bus while those who have already descended are being ushered through the roadblock. Several of them have turned towards the crowd.

Note: This is the last of the series. At 18:46:15 27AWZ returned to base to refuel.

8.15 p.m.

They had been waiting for almost five hours, and they were still waiting. And as they waited, the demonstration had grown.

Half an hour previously, a patrol car, blues and twos flashing, had stopped by the southern roadblock to disgorge a chief inspector. Here, it appeared, was the promised senior officer. But he only had to show his face and he was met by derision. ‘They’re using you for your black face,’ someone shouted, while someone else demanded to know why the policeman would do the white man’s dirty work, and soon the cry ‘House nigger! House nigger!’ drove him into the police station.

And still they stood and still they waited.

As the sun dipped it also dazzled, turning the northern sky yellow. The day’s last hurrah and the crowd grew. Threads of pinks and oranges began to trail through the sky and intensified as the sun slipped down. By 8.20, the police station was washed in crimson.

Such a glorious sight and yet it felt menacing, reminding Cathy of the recent sunrise and the foreboding which had then possessed her. That was the day that Ruben had been killed. And now?

She looked around her, registering how the crowd had changed. Whereas most of the early demonstrators had been Lovelace residents or members of Ruben’s extended family, the new arrivals were not so easily recognisable. They were younger and more energetic and, she thought, and hoped she was mistaken in this, spoiling for a fight.

‘They are not going to send anybody to speak to us,’ Ruben’s mother said. ‘There is nothing to be gained by staying.’

Pius and Marcus agreed. They had made their point. They must now regroup.

‘Let’s see the family safe indoors,’ Pius said.

It had been a while since Lyndall had been around. ‘You go ahead,’ Cathy said. ‘I need to find Lyndall.’

The crowd was much more densely packed; she looked this way and that.

‘Would you like us to wait for you?’

She took in the exhaustion on Ruben’s mother’s face and the anger on his father’s. ‘No. Don’t wait.’

She’d find Lyndall and then they’d both get out of there.

She started at the southern border of the enclosure. No Lyndall, nor Jayden either, just curious people heading down the High Street to check out what was going on. More of them were coming: the whole area would soon be densely packed.

A drum began to beat.

The sound seemed to pass right through her, intensifying her awareness of her thumping heart. The fear that she had tried to tell herself was only her imagination reared up, and once it came it would not go. She felt it hammering at her throat, taking away her breath as she walked. Faster and faster she went until she was almost running.

She called out ‘Lyndall?’ as she darted in and out of the knots of people who had gathered together: ‘Lyndall?’

She pushed on, heading for the northern roadblock: ‘Lyndall?’ Lyndall would never hear her mobile in this crowd. ‘Lyndall?’

Someone she passed heard her cry and took it up: ‘Lyndall!’ Others joined in so that soon the air was vibrating with the calling of her daughter’s name: ‘Lyndall! Lyndall! Lyndall!’ the drum now also pounding out the syllables: ‘Lyn-dall! Lyn-dall! Lyn-dall!’

She told herself that she had felt like this before when Lyndall had been late. Nothing had happened then. Nothing was going to happen now.

‘Lyn-dall! Lyn-dall! Lyn-dall!’

Someone grasped hold of her. She turned to face them.

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ Lyndall was so red with mortification that her face almost matched the colour of the setting sun. ‘I was here. I’ve been here all the time. You’re such a panicker.’

‘Come on. We’re off.’

‘I’m not going. It’s fine. He’ll look after me.’ She indicated the man beside her.

So caught up had Cathy been in the relief of finding Lyndall, she hadn’t noticed Banji there. Although perhaps she hadn’t noticed him because he looked nothing like himself. The distress she had seen in him that previous day seemed now to have pulled down his brow and pinched in his face. The irises of his eyes that were yesterday pink had darkened to a bloodshot red; below them the skin had blackened with fatigue.

She had seen how upset he was and yet had failed to seek him out. Cruel of her. She reached out to touch him.

Without even looking at her, he shifted out of reach. His focus was on the northern roadblock. ‘Where did they go?’

They? She looked to the point where the two policeman had been turning the traffic back and saw that, although the patrol car was still in the side street and beside it the abandoned bus, the two officers had vanished.

‘Maybe they’ve gone to move the roadblock back.’

It was as if she wasn’t there.

‘There’s enough of them.’ He was talking to himself.

She looked again, this time beyond the roadblock. She saw that where there had recently been three officers in the vicinity of the police station there were now at least twenty. No casual collection this: they were standing in lines as still as sentries.

‘Has someone turned them to stone?’ Lyndall’s joke foundered under the uneasy crack of her voice.

‘It’s going to kick off,’ Banji said. ‘They’ll make sure of that.’

She wasn’t sure whether the ‘they’ he was referring to was the police or the group of young men who had also sidled into view. They were not luxuriating in the warm evening; they were moving with a serious intention that soon displayed itself. They went over to the unguarded panda car, stopping within ten yards of it.

‘They’ll do something.’ Banji was now clearly talking about the police. ‘Even if they don’t have the right protective kit. They have to do something.’

The battering ram of young men seemed to agree. They looked expectantly at the police lines.

The police in the lines looked back. And did not move.

Later, when Cathy thought about how it had begun, it came to her as a series of freeze frames.

First off a fluid moment: one of the youths separated himself from his group and strolled over to the shop whose boxes were still laid out on the pavement. He picked up a box, returned to his starting point, put down the box, took out a cabbage, backed off a few yards and then began to run.