Kate Tempest - The Bricks that Built the Houses

‘If Pete comes back here, tell him to call me, would you?’

‘Course I will. Likewise if you hear from him first.’ They smile at each other. ‘Such a pleasure to meet you.’ Miriam walks towards her, arms out, and takes her into a hug. Becky notices the apron she’s wearing matches the serviettes and hugs Miriam a little tighter. David, leaning against the fridge holding a tub of ice cream, pushes his glasses up his nose, smiling.

Harry walks beside Becky. They keep in step and watch the paving stones. Neither of them feels the need to speak. Becky pushes her hair out of her face, gathers her collar up round her neck. Everything about the day feels close. They hear every passing car and gurgling bird. Harry swings her arms at her sides, walks on lazy legs. Becky’s hands are in her jacket pockets. They turn left at the end of the road. Harry points.

‘That’s the station, just down there.’ They keep walking, cross the road and through the doors, they look at the train times.

‘Where do you live?’ Becky asks.

‘Off Lewisham Way. Tanner’s Hill. You know it?’

‘Yeah, I live round the corner. In the block behind the high street,’ Becky says, smiling in surprise.

‘Deptford?’ Harry’s voice jumps up in excitement.

‘Yeah.’ Becky nods.

‘I would have thought I’d seen you ’round?’

‘Well, maybe you will now you know that I’m there.’ Becky studies the screen. Her hair ruffles in a passing wind that drills through the station; it touches her neck and she shivers. ‘There’s one in nine minutes.’

‘Come then.’

They walk down the steps, and up the other side. Becky blows on her hands and leans against the station wall. They watch the clock ticking over; one of the panels is broken and the 3 shows up like an 8.

‘They’re so nice, your family.’ Becky’s voice is soft, hushed on the empty platform.

Harry looks down at her feet, embarrassed. ‘We have our moments.’

‘It’s lovely. You all get on so well.’ Harry lets out a little laugh. ‘Why’s that funny?’

‘We never used to.’ She glances up into Becky’s eyes. Falls in, flounders. Clambers out.

‘What d’you mean?’ Becky feels the wind picking up around them, watches Harry’s outline.

‘Long story.’

‘Well’ — Becky looks up at the clock — ‘we got seven minutes.’ She closes her jacket around herself, her face is calm and cool.

Harry hunches inwards without realising, then slowly straightens. Her posture has never been good. She begins to speak, one word at a time, like feet treading a narrow path. ‘I didn’t speak to my mum for, like, ten years.’ Becky’s eyebrows climb. Harry shrugs. ‘She couldn’t deal with my. ’ She breaks off into a quietness. She looks for the words but can’t find them. ‘The way I am.’

‘The way you are what?’ Becky leans against the wall and watches her new friend closely. Her fingers scrape the mortar between the bricks behind her, rubbing the red crumbs and pushing them down into the groove.

‘Me.’ Harry leans back too and places the flat of her shoe against the wall, bouncing a little against it.

‘You can’t bring yourself to say it?’ Becky leans in towards her, eyes wide and round as a greyhound’s. Harry flinches in the face, a little pinch across the cheeks. A subtle tic she can’t control that betrays the force of her feelings.

‘No, what? It’s not that. I’m fine with it. It’s cool.’ Becky watches Harry’s profile; her cheekbones catch the winter sun. She’s blushing. She looks away, down the empty tracks, searches her pocket for her tobacco. Absorbs herself in rolling a cigarette. Speaks to the distance. ‘I went to live with my uncle when I was fifteen.’ Harry’s voice crackles at the base of her vowels. She speaks quietly, rich as music, a rattling sonata. The sloping toughness of the south London accent. ‘He was good to me. But he wasn’t well, though. He was an addict, he got sick. He passed away a few years ago. It was at his funeral that I reconnected with my mum. We speak now, yeah. We’re on OK terms.’

Becky turns her body so that she is facing Harry. The last light of the evening is being drawn out of the sky. Her skin is deepening in the coming darkness. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Oh no. It’s OK.’ Harry takes her foot off the wall, turns to face Becky, leaning on her shoulder; the side of her head kisses the bricks. ‘Family, innit, things happen in families.’ Becky nods her agreement, folds her arms and runs a hand over her head, through her hair. ‘Surprised Pete didn’t fill you in,’ Harry says, and Pete’s name opens a well in the ground, a dark sucking wind screams from its depths and pulls the station down towards it.

‘He doesn’t talk about you guys that much.’ Becky doesn’t take her eyes off Harry’s face. Her body is ashes and mud and clay. Everything is shaking with relevance. She is about to reach out a hand and touch Harry’s cheek when the train pulls in. The crack and the rattle smack all the quiet out of the platform. The hiss of electric and steel. Becky watches the train slowing. Yellow and blue lines stagger into shapes, doors, people’s faces.

‘Wanna wait for the next one?’ Becky asks.

Harry blinks in the wind from the train, looks sideways at Becky, catches her smile. ‘OK,’ she says quietly.

They watch the people get off the train, three young boys dressed in black tracksuits shout slang words. A drunk woman clutches a burger in both hands and brings it tentatively to and from her mouth, dropping shredded lettuce and splodges of ketchup onto the floor. A man in a suit with a fold-away bicycle stops to tie his shoelace. The train leaves, the people roll away and the platform returns to silence. They succumb to it, each in their own for a moment. Harry pushes herself off the wall and stares down the tracks. The wind bashes at her forehead, she closes her eyes and squints into it, shaking her head in joy. Becky laughs.

‘It’s nice,’ Harry tells her. ‘You try.’ So Becky stands beside Harry and faces the wind with her eyes closed, leaning into it, feeling it whipping around her ears, and she smiles. ‘See?’

‘Yeah, it’s nice,’ she agrees, but the wind dies down then.

‘What about your family?’ Harry asks.

‘What about them?’

‘What are they like? You get on well?’ Becky reaches a hand out for Harry’s roll-up, Harry gives it to her. Becky lights it. Watches the tracks curving into the distance.

‘My dad’s in jail. And my mum’s in a convent. She’s Jewish, but she’s born-again now. They’re both nuts. I don’t speak to either of them.’ She flicks her words like lit matches. They drop delicately, burning.

‘Not even letters?’

‘My mum writes letters, yeah.’ Her hair falls in front of her forehead, longer on one side; it swings across her eyes and down towards her neck. She pushes it away with the back of her hand. It looks so soft to Harry.

‘But you don’t write back?’

‘I haven’t, no. Not yet.’ She passes the cigarette back. Two pigeons land in front of them, peck each other’s feathers. Search the ground for chicken bones. Settle for the dropped lettuce.

‘That must be hard.’

‘Is what it is.’ Becky shrugs.

‘Do you visit him?’

‘No.’ Becky shakes her head. ‘Never been.’

Harry is absorbed. Listening intently. The slats on the clock judder, stuck. ‘Do you want to?’ The wind picks up again, takes dead leaves up in its arms and spins them around. Harry’s heart like an open hand, reaching.

‘Sometimes I want to. But I don’t know where he is.’ Becky’s voice comes from a place very deep down in her stomach.

‘You can find out, you know.’ Harry speaks kindly.