Dirk stared out of the window of the bus at the windows of the big houses by the Park, very nice houses owned by people with money, white people, nearly all of them, though a few Paki twockers had wormed their way in … One day he, Dirk, would make money.
He would raise himself. He would better himself. He would prove to his father that he had backbone. He would be … someone … a gentleman … like some of the officers were in the war, though Dad said most of them were donkeys … he would make his father proud of him. One day he would own a house like that. The sunset light on the window-panes winked back at him, encouraging him.
He would go far. Farther than the others. Then he could do something for the family. First he’d make Darren and Shirley look small. Then he’d be kind to them. Give ’em a leg-up. Maybe he would, if she changed her ways.
He would be … an international businessman. The net was the answer. He would do it that way. And buy a mansion for his father and mother. And they would be grateful. Fucking grateful. And Mum would have to be nice to him, not laughing at him because of his crewcut, not sneering at him because of his friends. Head in a book, what did she know? Did she notice anything about what was going on? Did she know that a battle was being fought, on the streets of London, Liverpool, et cetera? – Bristol. That was the other one. The other spot where they’d gone in force. According to Spearhead. (Dirk had never been to Bristol.)
One day he’d travel. He’d like to travel. To parts of the world where things were still all right. Not that there were so many of them left. South Africa had fallen. Had been sold out. It was a black day for whites, when they sold out. It used to be paradise. He’d read about it. He tried to imagine it. Fucking paradise. He closed his eyes. Lions, tigers. Sort of pink blossoms, lots of them. Boogie-something. Boogie blossoms. And – swimming pools. And strong white men. Muscular. Toned. Working out in the sunlight. Short haircuts and – brick-hard buttocks. Press-ups flipping over into sit-ups, and fuck, they all had enormous hard-ons, and most of the men round the pool were black …
He jerked awake in a sudden panic to find he had been carried past his stop, tried to get up before the bus moved again, and was blocked by the old woman beside him, gasping and moaning in her scarecrow get-up, muttering in some horrible lingo, wailing as if he had hurt her foot when he only trod on the side of it, and only because she was in his way – He shoved her, hard, and was out in the gangway, pushing his way to the front of the bus, and the driver must have heard him coming, he closed the doors and began to drive off.
‘Oi!’ shouted Dirk. ‘I want to get off!’
‘Next stop Hillesden Turn,’ said the driver.
‘OPEN THE DOORS! FUCKING LET ME OFF!’
The driver stopped the bus, with a hiss of the brakes. Dirk felt good about that. So they still obeyed orders. Then the driver got up, and Dirk saw with a start that he was eight feet tall. A fucking giant. A great woolly-haired coloured bloke eight feet tall. And there were all the others on the bus to help him. Dirk wasn’t a coward, but the odds were hopeless.
The driver got Dirk by the sleeve of his jean jacket. ‘You are bothering me,’ he said, smiling. ‘I say when this bus stops and when it doesn’t.’
The doors swung open, Dirk fell out and skidded on his bum on the slimy pavement. It felt very cold; the damp soaked through.
Fuck
Fuck
Fucking coloureds
Dad always told us. Always warned us.