Though her ankle was sore, and one palm was grazed, May found that her fall had left her in good spirits, so far as she could be, with Alfred ill. That nice young man had cheered her up, and Mr Varsani was concern itself, finding her a plaster behind his counter, and giving her new forms to fill in for the pension. Now the money, thank God, was safe in his till, though she’d kept twenty pounds, on a sudden impulse, to buy a few bits and pieces on the Rise. Very concerned about Alfred, he was. Though Alfred never had a good word for him.
That’s what we’re here for, to help each other. I’m not a good Christian, but I do think that. And that’s what that young man was doing. I blame the light, for the misunderstanding. My eyes aren’t good, but I’m not prejudiced. I never have been. Unlike poor Alfred.
What goes around, comes around, Darren likes to say. Maybe one day I shall return the favour. Do something good for one of his people. May found she had forgotten the young man’s name.
She daydreamed, wandering on down the high street, further south than she ever went, about saving a pretty black toddler from a river … But she couldn’t swim, so it wasn’t very likely. She changed it, plunging in front of a car to snatch a black infant from the jaws of death. The mother wept and hung round her neck. ‘Thank you, thank you.’ May smiled to herself.
The sun was coming out, flickering, steadying, coming in lances through the dull grey cloud, and as it came out, life came back. The red brick bloomed, and even the road had a sheen of bluey-purple petrol. A red-and-white, feathery, luxurious cat came delicately picking its way across it. May shook the water off her sleeves.
She was looking for the other off-licence which used to exist near the end of the high street. She couldn’t face going back to the one with the bored young girl who smelled of whisky. She’d think that I was no better than she is.
What she found, below the traffic lights, was a whole new world coming into existence. As upper Hillesden had been decaying, lower Hillesden was on its way up. She nearly walked into a chair on the pavement, and thought, confusedly, was it a junk-shop? But then she saw another one, two, three, and a half-caste youth setting up small tables, it was a café, for goodness sake, a pavement café like they had in Paris. She peered at the menu; it was all in French. She thought the young man was looking at her oddly, so she said, with a smile, trying to be friendly, ‘My daughter would like this. She likes French things,’ but he gawped at her as if she was crazy.
Suddenly there were more people around. May took her time, enjoying it. Something new to tell Alfred about. Young people lived in lower Hillesden, girls with crewcuts and boys with dark glasses, their hair all the colours of the rainbow, carrying computers in little flat cases like the one Darren had when he last came home. Some of them had frayed flared trousers and tangled hair and looked like beggars, but some of them had that glossy look, and the confident voices that meant they had money. There were cars, too, frivolous cars, a yellow one shaped like a cigar and a silver one like a shiny beetle. Brand-new cars, parked carelessly.
And she dimly recalled what Shirley had told her, which May refused to credit, at the time, that young people liked Victorian houses and turned up their noses at modern ones. Which explained why lower Hillesden’s slummy little houses, where May and Alfred would have blushed to live, funny red terraces with fussy patterned windows, were suddenly sprouting ‘For Sale’ signs, and some of them, she saw, when she looked more closely, had already grown expensive lace curtains, not the old grey nets they used to have, and window-boxes, and fancy knockers.
This off-licence was not like the other one. Instead of the bored girl, there were two smart young men, chattering and laughing in caressing voices. They had shelves of red wine costing more than ten pounds, and the fridge cabinet was full of champagne, not beer and white wine, like the other shop. When she asked for whisky, they pointed to a section with kinds of whisky she had never heard of, all of it from places with choking names that sounded like Dirk being sick after the pub, but really they belonged to tiny islands in Scotland. She chose three miniatures, judiciously. Something different; he might like that, though the price they rang up nearly made her faint.
She walked back up the road in the strengthening sunlight. There was a Sushi Bar – imagine it! – with narrow windows and queer blue light, and a girl peering out had half-moon eyes but the boy she was with was very black. There were three Indian restaurants, side by side, which made you wonder how they could survive. The Star of the East, just fancy, in Hillesden! There were two shops advertising ‘Cheap International Phone Calls’, and another one selling those uncomfortable beds with wooden bases and thin flat mattresses. But lovely colours: bright blue, bright green, and as life and hope ran through May’s veins she thought, If only Alfred were here, if only Alfred was home again. We’d come for a stroll, the two of us. May patted the bag with his whiskies for comfort.
Hillesden isn’t dying. It’s coming up.