Kate Tempest - The Bricks that Built the Houses

‘Yeah, I know.’ The sky is rolling inwards, dark pink to purple. Sinking to darkness.

‘But you don’t want to?’

‘Don’t think so, no. Not right now.’ Becky smiles at Harry, feeling exposed.

‘Who raised you?’ Harry’s questions are considered. She keeps her eyes on Becky’s face the whole time. Blows her smoke out to the side.

‘Myself. My friends. My auntie.’ Harry turns each word Becky says over in her mind. Divining. Becky reaches for the roll-up again, smokes some, retreating back to lean against the wall.

A can crawls across the platform in a sudden gust. Rings like church bells. They watch the trees rising over the corrugated-iron sheds that line the tracks, the dusk settles over the backs of people’s houses. The rotting fence posts and barbed wire and piles of old tyres.

‘So was it always girls?’

Becky’s face is smooth in the dimly lit night. Her skin sings the dusks and dawns of her grandmother’s country. Harry feels Becky’s beauty in her mouth like thirst.

‘Pretty much.’ Harry mulls it over.

‘No boys?’

‘Couple. But nothing serious, no,’ Harry explains.

‘Who was the first girl you fell for then, Harry?’

Harry lets out the same little laugh as before. Drops her chin. Furrowing her brow. Taken aback. She looks up at Becky, Becky’s eyes are calm and steady.

‘Ellie O’Dowd from the year above.’ She speaks slow; each word drags out as she relishes the thought, watches the ghost of Ellie swaying through the platform. ‘I thought about her every minute of the day, man. Used to walk out of my way before every lesson just to catch a glimpse of her. Then I couldn’t speak when she walked past.’ She shakes her head happily. ‘She used to, like, sit on my lap when no one was around and play with the chain I used to wear round my neck.’ She looks up laughing at Becky, shy but not embarrassed.

‘So you always knew you was gay?’ Becky’s voice is a missile. Straight to Harry’s core. Exploding on impact.

‘Yeah, think so.’

‘How did you know?’

Harry thinks about it. Rocks on her toes. Shuffling. ‘Well, how did you know you were straight?’

‘I’m not.’

‘You’re not?’ Harry’s voice comes out higher than she means it to.

Becky kicks at something on the station floor. ‘I like people, that’s all. I think it’s silly to limit yourself.’ Harry stuffs her hands into her pocket, leans backwards into her body. Stretching. Looking at a point in the sky. Smiling gently. ‘How old were you? With Ellie?’

‘I don’t know, thirteen maybe?’

Becky walks up and stands beside her. The crisp packets on the floor begin to spin and flutter. The Tannoy squirts a few muffled words. ‘I bet you were cute,’ she says. The train slams towards them. They watch the graffiti crystallising on the side panels as it slows.

When Becky gets home it’s dark and Pete is sitting on the step outside her flat.

‘I knocked. I don’t think no one’s in.’

‘How long you been out here?’

‘Not long. You took your time getting back.’

‘Why did you leave me at your mum’s like that?’ The moon is nearly full, tangled in thin clouds, high up in the sky. He doesn’t answer. ‘Pete?’

‘I just had to get out of there. It was doing my head in.’

‘You wanna come in?’

‘Can I?’

‘S’pose you better.’ She sighs. ‘Come on.’ She reaches her hand out, he takes it. She walks him into the house, he drags along behind her. His head hangs low, he’s all shoulders.

A rolling wind sprang up in the night and lifted the roofs of the garden sheds and pushed the heavy boughs of the trees around.

Leon stares out at the new morning. Something prickles in his body. He can smell fires burning in the cool new air, onions, curry paste, jerk ovens, motor oil, incense. The sirens scream their usual song, get louder, wilder, pass, grow faint again. He stares up at the sky. He can only access a little patch of it from the small brick courtyard, tall walls either side create a cuboid funnel upwards. He is shaken by the desire to see it stretching out, uninterrupted. To see it arching over sea waves, nothing stopping it at all.

Harry walks in, hair still wet from the shower, and finds Leon leaning against the door frame, craning his neck.

‘Morning,’ Harry says, flicking the kettle.

Leon turns his head and looks over his shoulder but his body stays facing the garden. ‘Let’s go to the beach,’ he says.

Harry joins him at the door. ‘What beach?’ She drapes an arm around his neck.

He points to the sky. ‘Yeah. Nice bit of sea air, settle us down.’

They stand and watch the pigeons on the barbed wire that scowls down from the top of their walls, separating them from the train tracks. Little round clouds puff like gunshots in the blue.

Harry lets her arm drop back to her side. Plays with the back-door handle. ‘You still feeling shaky? About tonight?’ she asks him without looking at him, noticing him massaging the muscles in his forearms, a thing he does when he’s nervous.

Leon turns, smiling, heads back into the kitchen. ‘Come on, let’s go have a walk by the sea, eat some fish and chips.’

Harry stands where she is, looking up at the sky, trying to see what Leon had just been seeing. The idea illuminates her. The pleasure of it washing out the dread that’s been churning her all night. ‘Alright then, yeah,’ she says. The kettle wobbles on its cradle, boiling madly.

They’re just turning onto Deptford Broadway, past the junction of the High Street where the anchor used to stand, when Harry sits forwards. ‘Stop,’ she says. ‘Pull over.’ Leon takes the next left and tucks in behind a Vauxhall outside the Kingdom Hall, the Jehovah’s Witness meeting room. ‘Stay here for a sec.’ Harry jumps out and runs back to the main road.

Becky is coming out of a shop on the high street, with a packet of tobacco and some Rizlas in her hand. She looks tired and sad in the way that people look when they don’t know that anyone is watching. The anonymity of a city street makes it a safe place to let your guard down. ‘Becky!’ Harry calls as she jogs up. Becky turns, sees Harry and drops her Rizlas.

She bends to pick it up. ‘Shocked me.’ She laughs.

They stand in front of one another, not sure how to greet. Becky leans in and kisses Harry’s cheek. Harry puts her hand on her waist lightly as she does it.

‘What you doing now?’

‘Was just on my way to the caff but they don’t need me today, so I don’t know, actually, what I’m doing.’

‘Ah brilliant!’ Harry’s face is a lottery win. She throws her hands up, open arms.

‘What’s brilliant?’

‘You should come to the beach!’ she says, as if it’s obvious.

‘What beach?’

‘Me and Leon going now, to the seaside. Sheerness maybe, Camber Sands.’ Harry’s words come out like a racing commentary. Becky laughs at her enthusiasm.

‘Who’s Leon?’

‘He’s my mate. You’ll love him.’

‘What, now?’

Mothers sway past them with bulging carrier bags, stuffed like the last bus home. Their arms are like tree trunks as they carry yams, meat, sacks of rice and tins of beans. They walk three abreast, laughing, towards the market. Kids late for school drag their feet, their ties undone, showing each other things on their phones. The men outside the greengrocer talk in Arabic, French, Punjabi, thick patois, Tamil. The men selling duvet covers from the patch on the corner talk in sing-song south London marketese — Come and getcha covers eeyah, look, any pillahcayse a pand . Students rifle through the old stereos, novelty cutlery and ancient brass ornaments that sit in boxes on the pavement. Looking for things for their art projects. Women test the fabric of the cheap shirts with expert fingers.