Kate Tempest - The Bricks that Built the Houses

‘She was a fighter. That’s for sure.’

‘She was a lovely woman, your mum.’ All over the street young men are screaming at each other and falling over. Harry feels her stomach twisting for her friend.

‘I’m at my dad’s now, ain’t I, but he’s ill. He’s not well at all, mate. His ankles are all swollen bad, so I have to piggy-back him to the fucking toilet, sit with him while he shits so he don’t fall off, clean him up after, pick him back up, take him back to the fucking. chair and that. Bed. Whatever.’ Reggie nods. Clenches his jaw and raises his eyebrows. Sighs deeply and shrugs, palms stretched out, turned upwards.

‘Fuckinell, Reggie.’ Harry shakes her head sadly. With nothing else to do, she lights a cigarette, offers one to Reg, Reg takes one. Gets an almost full pack from his pocket and puts it away for later. Harry pretends not to notice.

‘Can’t even fucking. ’ He pauses, watches the trails. ‘Keep a girlfriend, Harry.’

‘Nothing new there then, mate.’

‘I’m starting to think it must be my personal fucking hygiene.’ He lifts up his arm, sniffs it deeply. ‘I don’t smell too bad do I, sis? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’ He moves towards Harry to get her face into his armpit.

Harry pushes him away. ‘Fuck off!’ she squeals. Backing away. Raising her fists. ‘I ain’t going nowhere near that fucking armpit.’

‘Come on, Harry, help me out!’ Reggie grabs hold of her by the shoulders and stuffs her face into his armpit. Harry wriggles free, Reggie grabs her again, laughing, arm raised, armpit out. Harry wrestles herself out of his hold and pretends to land a couple of digs in his belly. Reggie responds, folds over as if he’s hurt. ‘You killed me,’ he says, bent double.

‘Get up, you idiot,’ Harry says, kicking him softly in the back of the leg.

They stand side by side again, smiling. Harry straightens her hair as best she can. When it’s loose it hangs down to her shoulders and sticks out at the sides. It’s corkscrew curly. She wears it pulled up at the back, but bits of it always wiggle free and spark off in different directions.

‘Don’t worry, babe, your hair looks lovely.’

‘Fuck off, you prick,’ Harry says, and she carries on sorting her hair out.

Reggie looks at the rain falling, speaks with a gravelly throat. ‘She left me again, didn’t she? I don’t blame her. It’s the hours. She wants me to stop going out all the time. But this is how I’m living, know what I mean?’

‘Tell me about it, mate.’ Harry wraps an arm around herself, dips her head towards her cigarette and sucks its smoke up, staring at her work shoes. Scuffed and bland and brown.

‘You got a girlfriend, Harry?’

The neon sign above them, illuminated with the legend Casablanca Mini Market , begins to flicker. The low-level street roar seems to rise in Harry’s ears for a moment. A motorbike revs its engine as it passes.

‘Me? No,’ she says, frowning. ‘No.’

‘Boyfriend then?’

‘Keep dreaming, Reg.’

Reggie laughs. Stretches his back out, stretches his neck.

‘Shit though, innit, eh? Not having one.’

Harry turns towards him, squinting a little.

‘Well, you look alright, Reg. You look happy.’

‘I’m always happy, mate, can’t keep a good dog down. Can you?’ He shouts at the street, ‘CAN YOU?’ The street ignores him. He laughs. ‘Fuck ’em. What you doing up here anyway?’

‘Ah just some work thing. Some do.’

‘What is it you do again?’ Reggie’s weighty frame towers beside Harry. They look like a pair of unlikely cartoon friends, a bear and a mouse. The people surge past them in a babbling, viscous current.

‘I’m in recruitment.’

‘That’s right. Recruitment. How’s that going?’

‘It’s good, yeah. It’s steady.’ Traffic goes past blaring bass. They watch the rain fall. Harry smokes in sharp blasts.

‘Look, Reg,’ she says quietly, ‘I’m really sorry to hear about your mum.’

‘Don’t worry about me, mate. I got her ring here.’ Reggie’s chin is scrawled with stubble, his long hair sticks to his forehead beneath his cap. He lifts the peak with one hand and pushes his hair back with the other, then readjusts it, tilting it so that it lifts at just the right angle, up towards the falling rain. He brings his hand up to eye level, palm towards the street. They look at the ring, dancing there in the grim blue night. ‘I wear it now, she always told me to keep fighting and that.’ The ring is chunky, made up of seven or eight gold plaits woven together, and it shines in the street light.

Harry sways with the force of her feelings, dwarfed by sudden grief, and the guilt of knowing life goes on. She reaches out and slaps Reggie on the back gently. She leaves her hand there for a moment before bringing it back to her side. ‘How are the kids and that?’ she asks breezily.

‘No, they’re good, yeah. Fit and healthy, pair of angels. They’re with their mum.’ Reggie grins and shows the gold in his teeth. As his smile widens Harry sees the wormy pink scar that cuts him cheek to neck as it fattens and elongates, before settling back into the shadows of his scrubby beard. She remembers the night it happened, feels herself pulled towards it.

‘How old are they now?’

‘Michael’s seven and Rochelle’s fourteen this May.’

‘Fuckinell,’ Harry whistles.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Flies by.’

‘That it does, Harry,’ Reggie agrees sadly.

They stand and feel the time flying by them.

‘Listen,’ Reggie says, brightening up, ‘you want any Mandy, any gear?’

‘I’m OK, thanks, mate. I’m alright.’ Harry straightens up. Puffs on her cigarette.

‘Sure? I’ll sort you out. You know I got the good stuff, innit?’

‘I’m all good. Thanks though.’

Reggie kicks at the floor. ‘Suit yourself.’ The street is packed with people going to bars, leaving bars. Coming out of the station. Packed like a clogged artery. ‘I’m telling you. Nitrate, mate. The kids love it. It’s a fucking festival round here. Look at the state of it. Pissing it down with rain, look at this lot. It’s a fucking dream round here. I’m out most nights doing this, get back to the old man later, make sure he’s alright.’

As if on cue, a young guy walks up, gurning. ‘How much the balloons, mate?’

‘Fiver each or three for a tenner.’

‘Wicked. I’ll take six, please, mate.’

Reggie raises his eyebrows at Harry.

‘Look Reg, I better get on.’

‘Alright then, girl. Lovely to see you. Watch out for the chem trails. Don’t drink the tap water.’

Harry nods. ‘See you later, mate. Look after yourself now, won’t you?’ She smiles warmly as she turns her collar up and walks away. The rain gathers in the curls of her hair, the other hand cups her cigarette in the downpour.

She is wearing her work clothes. A dark navy suit that hangs strangely on Harry like all clothes do. Her white shirt is tucked in, her trousers hang a little too loose on her waist. Her skinny frame cuts through the crowded street and her coat billows in the wind of passing buses. She pulls it around her and does up the buttons. She looks sharp. She moves in confident strides. Feet fast, she takes long steps. She is all London: cocksure, alert to danger, charming, and it flows through her. Reggie’s face repeats on all the strangers she passes and her eyes prickle and she blinks hard. She sees a homeless woman sat with her head on her knees by the cash machine outside Tesco Express; her upturned hands are red with bulbous sores. The woman looks up as Harry slows her pace and Harry’s hand goes to her pocket. They look at each other. Harry sees that the woman is much younger than she’d thought at first. A teenager. But her face is all cracked and lined. Scars and spots and dirt creep across her skin, but her eyes are strong and clear. There is no fear in them, Harry notices, just exhaustion.