I can’t remember if, right at the start, there were some people who thought it was a good idea. The Localisation Act, Localisation. Whatever you want to call it. Whatever you do call it, I guess – because I’m sure you know all of this differently to me.
For me though, it was Caleb who explained it best. When Tuesday came, Ma said I could go over to his, at the normal time we had after-school club, and even though no one else turned up at his house, we sat at his table and he fried me an egg.
‘I mean I get it,’ I told him, ‘but I don’t get it,’ as the yolk popped orange.
He splashed a slug of chardonnay into his mug. I thought of the other times I’d gone to see him in the morning to borrow books, how he’d been drinking then too – ‘I like my coffee white in the morning,’ he’d told me once or twice, ‘and with no coffee in it.’
‘You heard about the tax strike?’ he said then. I nodded. ‘Well, they called our bluff on it. Big time.’
He said the government in London claimed they were taking the protest to its logical conclusion. People wanted autonomy? Autonomy was what they’d get. But in the dark, London pushed negotiations further.
‘The councils must have tried to fight back, I’m sure they did,’ he said. ‘But they had no lights. No leg to stand on. What could they do?’
The Localisation Act was pushed through. Local services were put in the hands of local authorities. But more than that, they’d have to pay for them.
‘A decentralised system,’ Caleb said. ‘But a hardcore one. In a country the size of a thumb.’
‘My mum was asking if de-central could be good though?’ I said. ‘Better than them having all the power?’
‘The thing is, everything we need, we now have to pay for it with local taxes. Do you see the problem?’
I nodded. I wanted to see.
‘We’re poor here,’ he said. ‘There aren’t that many jobs. Barely any industry at all. The average earning’s not much – so the tax we pay? It’s pocket fluff. Now though, if we want electricity, it’s a free market. And who knows what they’ll charge for it.’ He turned around to the sound of his tap dripping and stood up to turn it off. ‘And you should hear the way they’re talking about it too, Chance – like it’s a good thing. “Empowering.” Like it’s time for us to finally stand tall on our own two feet.’ He put his hand up ironically to his chest as if the national anthem were playing. ‘It’s bullshit,’ he said. ‘Lipstick on a firebomb.’
In the months that came, Caleb heard from friends in richer places about what had happened for them. Businesses who’d flooded in to offer services where the councils couldn’t. A chance to profit, privatise. ‘Fine if you’re the Cotswolds, but…’
He didn’t need to say it. We weren’t the Cotswolds. No one came for us. Or if they did, it was the worst of anyone. Slum landlords, sharks.
But anyway, all that was later. Two days after the lights came on, a guy came round to Liam’s flat asking for JD. I was in the living room, so I only saw a flash. It was Ma who opened the door. All I remember seeing was this spade for a jaw and black hair in a topknot, and how tall he was, but quicker than anything, as soon as he arrived, JD zipped himself off the sofa. It was Kole.