Glory waited in the living room for Faith to come back, her mood restored, goodwill replenished, chatting about something inconsequential, while she juggled her babbling children. But time passed, the TV unit slipped into standby, and the light faded around her in the room.
She got up and left.
As she waited for the bus to come, a notification came through on Instagram. It was a direct message from one of the barbers at Pharoah’s:
“Are u with J? Tell him to come to the shop now. Feds are here.”
Glory immediately called Julian’s number, but it rang and rang, eventually connecting with his voicemail. She ended the call and tried again, but this time it didn’t even ring. It had been turned off.
Glory opened the Uber app on her phone, ready to request a ride and get back to Peckham as quickly as possible. But the app told her that she could not use it until she had settled her previous balance. She opened the banking app on her phone and checked her account, swearing into the winter sky when she realized she was at the limits of her overdraft once again.
The wait for the next bus was long and chilly, and when she finally boarded she sat right at the front on the top deck, watching the street lights through the condensation on the windows.
Glory changed buses when she reached Peckham, then began the short walk to Pharoah’s. As she approached she could see the flashing blue lights of a police car casting the long shadows of spectators across the road. She hurried through the small crowd that had formed outside and into the bright light of the shop front, where her path was blocked by a burly officer.
“What happened?” she called past him to one of the barbers who was sat in his chair, a wad of paper towels wound around a hand he held elevated. Another officer was crouched in front of him with a notepad.
“What’s going on?” Glory shouted again. This time the barber looked at her, his face weary.
“Where’s Jay?” he asked her gruffly.
“I don’t know, he’s not answering my calls.”
“When you find him, tell him he needs to get down here. Some dumb yout’s tried lick off the shop.”
“Did they take anything?”
The barber grunted and turned back to the officer at his feet.
“Are you OK?” Glory asked him. “Has someone called an ambulance?”
The paper towels around his hand were growing bloodier.
“We’ve got things under control, miss,” the officer said, and she backed away from the shop in a daze, her heart pounding.
Nearby she could hear someone, who claimed to have been in the shop at the time, recounting what had happened in bursts of excitement.
“. . . my man grabbed the yout’s knife you know—with his bare hands! I think that shook them up because when he saw that, the yout” just dropped the knife and ran out the shop and all his likkle pussyhole friends followed.”
The guy was jumping about energetically.
“Did they take anything?” Glory asked him, thinking of Julian’s preference for thick rolls of hard cash.
“What?”
“Did the yout’s take anything?”
“Oh, no! When Tony grabbed the blade they realized what kinda badman they ah deal wid! Ya simme?” The boy preened with pride as though he was the one who fended off the robbers. “I dunno who called the feds but they didn’t need to. T’s not gonna tell them nothing. We’ll deal with that ourselves, ya feel me?” He pounded a fist into his open palm and Glory walked away, sickened by his enthusiasm.
There was no answer at Julian’s flat and his phone was still turned off. She backed away from the entrance to the block of flats and began walking to her house. At the end of the road ahead she saw a black van pull up. The door opened and a man hopped out, hands buried deep in his pockets and his head bowed, but as he walked toward Glory, engrossed in whatever thought, she recognized his gait.
“Julian!”
He looked up, confused by the sight of her, then he looked caught out, pushing his hood back in a guilty sweep.
“Glory, what’s going on? What are you doing?”
“Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling and then I went to the shop and there’s police there!”
“Police?”
“Someone tried to rob the shop and Tony the barber got stabbed in the hand or something, I dunno, but he said you needed to get down there.”
Julian kissed his teeth.
“Crabs in a fucking bucket, I swear!”
Julian piled his hands on top of his head. As he stood just shy of a streetlamp, Glory could make out half circles of dirt embedded under his nails.
“Do you know who might have done it?”
“Probably,” he replied grimly. “I need to get to the shop.”
He began walking in the direction of Pharaoh’s.
“Shit!” He stopped and looked down at the loose tracksuit he was wearing, his feet sporting a pair of muddied work boots instead of one of his immaculate pairs of trainers. “I need to change first.” He turned back around and headed in the opposite direction.
“You want me to come with you?” Glory asked, turning to follow him.
“No, just go home, Glory. I’ll call you later, yeah?”
And he picked up his pace, breaking into a slow jog up the road.