Belinda stepped back and twirled round. She was wearing a pair of blue silky trousers with a low gusset, very loose around the hips and legs and tied tight at the ankles.
‘You like them?’ she said, smiling.
‘Very nice,’ I said.
‘Thank you.’
‘They make it look like you’ve got a turd hanging out your bum,’ Carlton said. Belinda’s laugh was like gold coins pouring from a fruit-machine.
‘No, I’m only joking Lin. They’re terrific.’ Belinda and I talked for a few moments while Carlton opened and closed drawers and cleared stuff away.
‘Hey, listen, I’m sorry I’ve got to rush you both but I’ve really got to get a move on,’ he said. Belinda handed him a bag of grass.
‘Thanks a lot. How much do I owe you Lin?’ he said.
‘Twenty-five. Plus ten for being so rude about my trousers.’
‘Can I owe you?’
‘What a cheek.’
‘Thanks.’ Carlton pulled some notes out from behind a book and eyed them like a disappointing hand of cards before shoving them in his pocket.
‘Where are you going?’ Belinda said.
‘My brother’s for lunch. I’m supposed to be there already. Right: keys, money, bike-lock. .’
‘And you’re coming to Foomie’s on Saturday?’
‘Yeah. Right, let’s go,’ Carlton said, wheeling his bike backwards out of the door. We followed him out and waited while he went through the lengthy procedure of locking up his flat.
‘I don’t know why you bother. You’ve got nothing worth nicking.’
It was a warm, clear day; litter caught the sun and shone. Belinda and I walked along the pavement while Carlton skooted along beside us.
‘Where you going Lin?’ he asked.
‘I’m meeting Foomie, Carmel and Manda for a rehearsal.’
‘A rehearsal for what?’ I asked.
‘We’re starting a rap group.’
‘They’re always starting something. First they were going to make a film then it was something else. Now it’s this,’ Carlton said. Belinda had put on a pair of sunglasses. I was still squinting at the glare.
‘It’s a good idea isn’t it,’ she said.
‘Old hat,’ Carlton said, laughing.
‘I wasn’t speaking to you.’
‘I think it’s a great idea.’
‘He’s only saying that. He hates all that kind of music.’
‘You don’t do you?’
‘Well. .’
‘Well, you’re square. .’
‘I’m going to have to get on. I’ll catch you later.’ Carlton said, leaning over to kiss Belinda on the cheek. He waved to me and cycled off.
Belinda said I should come along and meet the other people in her group if I wasn’t doing anything. We made our way down Brixton Hill and past the town hall. Ahead of us a tall guy in a check sports jacket and baseball cap sprang along, trousers flapping round his ankles, walking as though each step had been astonished by the previous one. Outside Red Records we bumped into Luther and his coffee jar.
‘What’s it for?’ Belinda asked. Luther looked up, saw a white man and a black woman, and said, ‘Mandela.’
Inside the cafe a woman was trying to serve food and hold on to a baby at the same time. It seemed certain that either the baby or the contents of its stomach were going to end up in the stew before the day was out. Service was understandably slow. Belinda tapped her feet. The sun blared through the large plate glass roasting bag of the window. Belinda’s friends hadn’t showed up yet. We ordered a pot of tea and went outside and shared a table with a white rasta. He had a wispy beard and sunken, kidney-problem eyes. There was only one person in the world who didn’t think he looked like a jerk and we were sitting next to him. After a couple of minutes he unlocked his bike and left. A damp waitress brought out tea and we drank it, sweating, in hot gulps.
‘Nice shirt,’ Belinda shouted to a young punk who slouched past with ‘Sceptic Death’ printed on the back of his black shirt. He took it as a compliment. Carmel and Manda showed up together and Belinda introduced me. They were both wearing sunglasses.
‘No sign of Foomie?’ Manda said, taking her glasses off.
‘You know what she’s like.’
They ordered some cold drinks and sucked at them through straws.
‘Here she is,’ Belinda said, laughing and waving. Foomie walked slowly towards us, smiling. She had on a T-shirt, large black shorts, red ankle-socks.
‘Where’ve you been Foomie?’ Carmel called out.
‘An hour late,’ said Belinda, smiling.
Foomie came over and kissed all three of them. Her arms were thin and muscular. Her hair was pulled tight to one side of her head and tumbled down like black weeping willow over the side of her face. She looked sleepy but her eyes were unhurried and calm as water in a glass.
‘I’m never drinking again,’ she said, holding Belinda’s hand. ‘My head. It feels like it’s made of tupperware.’ Carmel shifted over so that Foomie could share her seat. She ordered mineral water and siphoned off an inch of Carmel’s orange.
Belinda introduced Foomie and me and we shook hands for a moment. She smiled but there was something instantly different in her manner. She was friendly but formal, not at all like she was with her three friends and not at all like Belinda who was abrasive and funny from the moment you met her. I’d heard of Foomie but this was the first time I’d actually met her. Previously, she’d either just left before I arrived somewhere or she was meant to have turned up at a party but had got side-tracked and ended up somewhere completely different.
Foomie’s water arrived. She drank it in one gulp, gasped and ordered another. The four of them talked about what they’d been doing, laughing loudly and sipping drinks. I laughed and smiled but didn’t say anything. I was sitting there but I was like a guy at another table hidden by his newspaper. I looked at Foomie, at her arms and hair, and had a sense of gravity rippling around her limbs.
‘Steranko!’ I shouted suddenly, seeing him cycling home from Brixton Recreation Centre in training shoes and an old tracksuit. He came over and leant against the crossbar of his bike. We joked for a few moments until Belinda introduced him to everybody. He noticed Foomie and she noticed him, his gestures, the way he moved. I watched how they shook hands and smiled at each other. His sleeves were pushed up above the elbows; the veins stood out on his forearms. He was unshaven, his body had that easy assurance that comes after intense physical exertion. There was a clarity about his movements. He ran a paint-splashed hand through his hair, dripping with sweat or water from a shower.
‘What have you been doing?’ Belinda asked.
‘Squash,’ he said.
‘You’re so fucking sporty Steranko.’ At this point I wanted, quite badly, to point out that I’d absolutely hammered him the last time we’d played squash. And tennis.
‘We’ve got to go,’ Carmel said. ‘It’s practice time.’
‘Where shall we go?’
‘Let’s go to my house.’
‘Why don’t we go to my house. It’s nearer.’
‘My place is near too.’
‘We never go to my house.’
‘It’s too far away.’
‘No it’s not and I’ve got a double-tape cassette player.’
‘I’ve got a double cassette player too and it’s much better than yours. I only bought it six weeks ago. Yours hardly works.’
‘It works perfectly.’
‘I don’t care where we go.’
‘Nor do I.’
‘Let’s just go.’
Steranko and I listened and grinned at each other. There was an elaborate chorus of goodbyes and then we watched them walk away. When they had gone it was as if their ghosts were still there in the chairs, as if the air was still used to shaping itself around them. I could hear their voices all over again like a perfect echo.