Brixton Bwoy Read online

What Joe inflicted on Pupatee, Pupatee in turn dealt out to the rest of the world, to other boys. He had become a bully, though he liked to think he never picked on kids smaller or younger than him, and that he used his strength and fierceness to defend people – which was sometimes, but not always, true. One way or another Pupatee had found that violence had a purpose. It won respect and position. He had crossed boundaries, gone further than he should, and found that nothing terrible happened. He supposed it was the same with Joe. Joe beat him and the heavens didn’t fall. Pupatee beat up other boys and stole money and the world went on. So they both continued.

  One day, in the school playground, two white boys and a black boy from another school walked past and began making comments about some of the girls through the fence. Pupatee strode over to see what was happening and told the boys to cool themselves.

  ‘Who you ah talk to?’ the black boy said.

  ‘You,’ answered Pupatee. ‘Leave them alone.’

  ‘Is you gal or something, no?’

  ‘No, it don’t matter what they are to me, just stop upsetting them.’

  ‘So what you going to do bout it if we no left de gal dem?’ the black boy challenged.

  By this time the whole school was backed up behind Pupatee, shouting at him to tell them to piss off, and the next moment the boys had challenged him to a fight outside school. Pupatee said he would see them later.

  The news spread so quickly that the teachers soon heard and gave out warnings against fights. But that day in the wood and metal workshop Pupatee secretly fashioned a knife, intending to take it with him. Another boy talked him out of it, so Pupatee hid the knife.

  When he and his friends reached the school gate, Pupatee saw the three boys walking down the street towards them. The black boy approached and asked if Pupatee was ready to fight. Before Pupatee could even answer, he slashed something sharp towards him. Pupatee pulled back and reached up, half expecting to feel an open wound and blood pouring out. Fortunately, the boy hadn’t really aimed to cut him, but Pupatee was fuming and turned and marched back into the school to get his knife, all eleven inches of it. With the knife in his hand, he ran back out towards the gate. Fortunately, the three boys were gone. But Pupatee was so full of anger that if he had caught them no thoughts of the police or gaol, or even Joe, would have prevented him from using that knife.

  Every Friday afternoon, two of the teachers would take a group of kids from the school to the Cockpit Theatre in the West End to take part in drama workshops. Pupatee loved the acting and the chance to get away and meet new kids.

  One Friday morning, before leaving for work, Joe gave Pupatee five pounds and told him to buy some white paint so he could start redecorating the front of the house that weekend. Pupatee knew that by the time he finished at the Cockpit the shops would be closed, so he decided to rush out and get the paint before school. He would be a bit late for his first class, but that was better than missing drama.

  As soon as the shops opened, Pupatee ran across the road and got the paint. On the way back, he thought about helping Joe to paint the front of the house. It was the kind of thing Pupatee liked doing. Joe had recently begun to do up the house a bit, buying a new coffee-table, television and settee. His prize purchase was a bright green carpet in the living-room.

  Pupatee rushed into the house and put the tin on the mantelpiece. But no sooner had he let go of it to turn away than there was a terrible crash. He looked round and to his horror saw the tin, lid off, spilling white paint all over Joe’s prize carpet. ‘Oh God, have mercy, he’ll kill me,’ Pupatee said out loud. He picked up what was left of the paint and set to work on the carpet with paint stripper, turps, paraffin, liquid soap and anything else he could think of. He cleaned that carpet for dear life, once, twice and three times. And then there was no more to be done: the carpet was permanently stained with a horrible mixture of white paint and the various substances he had applied. He was sure he would get the beating of his life that night.

  Pupatee took his bag and headed out to school – very late now, but he didn’t care. He was deep in depression. He didn’t smile or laugh once. He felt lonely and unloved. The whole school must have told him to cheer up, but he was too heavy with the thoughts in his head.

  A couple of boys pressed him to tell them what was the matter and when Pupatee did they failed to understand. ‘Don’t be silly,’ they said. ‘Is that all? You’re looking as if the world is coming to an end. Cheer up, mate.’

  As the day wore on and the time when Pupatee knew Joe would come home and see the stained carpet drew closer, he became more and more downcast. At the end of school, the teachers took the drama group off to the Cockpit; Pupatee never enjoyed an acting session less. Finally came the moment when the teachers told them all to go home. The other kids piled out laughing and talking, ready for the weekend, wanting to get home to where their mothers would have their tea waiting for them.

  Pupatee got on the bus with his white friend Danny, who lived not far from him in Camberwell. Danny was weird looking. He walked with his feet pointing out, and he had a peculiar, skinny body. But the oddest thing about him was his face, which seemed much too big for the rest of him. When he laughed, which he did wholeheartedly, his face would become even bigger, his smile pushing out his cheeks, and his chin pointing down towards his chest. Not that Pupatee minded. On the way home Danny asked Pupatee what was wrong, and when Pupatee tried to explain he didn’t put him down. He seemed sympathetic.

  While the bus worked its way through the crowded streets of the city, Pupatee thought about what lay ahead. And by the time they reached Camberwell he had made up his mind.

  ‘Danny,’ he said, ‘I can’t go home, I got to avoid this beating. I canna take no more. Can I come round your house?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Danny, without hesitation. ‘You can come round.’

  ‘Danny, can I stay at your house?’ pleaded Pupatee.

  ‘I don’t see why not, if you ask my mum and dad.’

  When they reached Danny’s flat, Danny immediately blurted out the story to his mother, and just as he was asking if Pupatee could stay the weekend, Danny’s dad arrived home.

  ‘Is this true?’ Danny’s parents asked Pupatee.

  ‘He is going to beat me bad.’

  ‘OK,’ Danny’s mum said. ‘You can stay here for the weekend, but on Monday you must leave.”

  ‘Thank you, Mrs—’

  ‘Madge, you can call me Madge,’ and she gave him a big smile and a motherly wink. And Danny’s dad took Pupatee’s hand, shaking it hard, and told him to call him Tom. For the first time all day Pupatee felt like smiling, so he did.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Madge asked.

  ‘We’re starving, Mum,’ said Danny.

  They ate dinner and then Tom, Danny and Pupatee went to watch television while Madge busied herself washing up and ironing and tidying the place.

  ‘Pupatee,’ Danny said after a while, ‘Dad knows some good jokes, don’t you, Dad? Tell us one, Dad, go on.’ Tom laughed and told a few jokes. They didn’t seem very funny to Pupatee, but he was glad to be with them, and put on a good show of smiling and laughing until it was time for bed. There was only one bed in Danny’s room, so he lay at one end and Pupatee lay at the other. Despite the squeeze, Pupatee slept like a log.

  After breakfast the next morning they lounged about the house for a while and then decided to go out for a walk through Danny’s estate. It was uneventful until they ran across a group of other kids, some younger than them and some older, who all started pointing and whispering. Then one of the older boys shouted out that Danny shouldn’t be around there.

  ‘Why can’t I come here?’ Danny shouted back.

  ‘You fucking well know why, Danny,’ the oldest boy said aggressively. ‘The things you do to little girls.’

  Pupatee stood there, his mouth hanging open. He didn’t understand what was going on. The boy came over to him and said, ‘No disrespect to you, mate, but I wouldn’t hang arou
nd with him if I was you. He is a child-sex case. Lots of people hate him round here for what he’s done.’

  Pupatee still didn’t know what was going on, but he could sense that Danny must have done something pretty bad as he had now turned as red as a cherry and made no attempt to defend himself. And then a woman leaned out of the window of one of the flats and started shouting. ‘Get that dirty little evil bastard away from my children,’ she yelled.

  ‘See, Danny, you’d better clear off,’ said one of the kids. With that, Danny was gone as quickly as he was a greyhound chasing a rabbit at the track. Pupatee stood there staring all around, not knowing what to do.

  By now, the woman from the window had come down. ‘That boy will get you into serious trouble, young man,’ she said. ‘Do you know what that dirty sod done? He put his hand down my little girl’s knickers.’ She pointed to a girl of about five. ‘I’ll kill him if I catch him round here.’

  Pupatee found Danny back at the flat. ‘You didn’t have to run, Danny,’ he told him when he got there. ‘I’d have helped you if any of them had started anything.’ Though Pupatee wasn’t sure he would have. Danny put his finger to his lips and dragged his friend outside, but Madge appeared almost immediately.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘Nothing, Mum.’

  ‘Why have you come back then? You only went out a little while ago.’

  ‘We just … we just felt like coming back, that’s all.’

  Madge looked down sternly at them. She had just got out of the bath and was wearing a long dressing-gown, with a towel wrapped around her head. ‘All right then, Danny,’ she said. ‘But seeing as you’re home you can go and tidy that mess of a bedroom of yours.’

  As Danny went to his room, Madge pulled Pupatee into the sitting-room.

  ‘Pupatee, I know you and Danny are mates,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want you to lie for him. Now, what happened out there today? Tell the truth, Pupatee.’ She held Pupatee’s arms and looked at him as if life itself depended on him telling the truth.

  ‘It my fault, Madge,’ Pupatee said. ‘I wanted to walk that way and Danny was only following. And then we ran into these other kids.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Pupatee hesitated, but then he thought he’d better do as she asked. Even saying the words he’d heard the kids and woman speak made him feel ashamed, as if he was dirtying himself.

  Madge nodded at him. ‘I’m glad you told me the truth, Pupatee. There’s something I think you should know, too. Danny was accused of touching some kids round the back of the flats and it seems there was some truth to it. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. I’ve told him I’ll kill him if it happens again. I’ll call the police myself next time.’

  Madge stopped talking suddenly as Danny came in. She went out, giving Pupatee a pleading look. Danny was immediately down Pupatee’s earhole. ‘What did she ask you? What did you tell her?’ Pupatee told him he’d said nothing.

  The subject never came up again and Danny’s parents treated Pupatee well. They gave the boys money to go to the pictures with enough over for hot dogs, drinks and ice-cream. Back at the flat, Danny’s mum cooked up big meals and treated Pupatee like her own, always making sure he had enough. Pupatee even began to enjoy Danny’s dad’s boring jokes. It was so friendly in that house Pupatee thought he could have stayed there for ever.

  Eventually Monday morning came round. Pupatee said goodbye to Madge and Tom and thanked them for the weekend. But after all their kindness to him, he did something really heartless: he didn’t know why, but just before he left he stole a lighter from on top of the television and hid it in his pocket. Then he and Danny trooped off to school.

  The day began without trouble, but in the afternoon Pupatee was called into the office of the headmaster, Mr Bishop. With his big white beard he looked like Captain Bird’s Eye. Pupatee found sister Pearl with the headmaster. She asked where Pupatee had been all weekend, and said Joe had called the police and everyone had been so worried.

  Pupatee told her everything and swore he would not go back to Selborne Road with Joe. ‘OK, then,’ Pearl said eventually. ‘You can come by me after school and then you and me and Mr H will sort it out.’ Pupatee was so delighted with this that he was on top of the world that day, showing off his new lighter and laughing with everyone, as happy now as he had been unhappy on the Friday before. Deep down he knew he shouldn’t have stolen the lighter, but it was too late to give it back, so he forgot about his crime and enjoyed himself.

  That night, Joe came round to sister Pearl’s and leaped at him and started to beat Pupatee before he even had a chance to explain himself. Sister Pearl screamed and shouted at him to leave Pupatee alone. Now she had seen with her own eyes what Joe did.

  ‘Come on,’ Joe growled at Pupatee. ‘We’re going home.’ Conditioned to obey Joe, a part of Pupatee told him to stand up and follow him. But he stood firm and said nothing. Joe gave him a final glare. ‘Don’t ever tell anyone we are brothers,’ he yelled. Then he slammed the door and was gone.

  4

  Brixton Front Line

  A few evenings after Pupatee arrived in Brixton, Roland took him out to the Blue Lagoon café. This was run by Mr C, a black man, and Mrs J, a white lady, who were both loved and respected by everybody. The tables and chairs were laid out in neat rows and on each table were pots of hot pepper sauce, vinegar, salt, and pepper. To walk into the café was to enter a world of wonderful smells of Caribbean cooking.

  The Blue Lagoon was one of the favourite hang-outs for the local West Indian kids. Many of them were about the same age as Pupatee – thirteen or fourteen – but though they were smaller than him (he had grown into a bulky boy) they seemed older. They were all dressed in up-to-the-minute clothes like Levi’s, Wrangler’s or Lee Cooper’s jeans – some flares, some bell-bottoms – with Fred Perry T-shirts, Ben Shermann and Brutus shirts, crombie coats, and leather or suede jackets, all of which made Pupatee mistakenly think they were the children of rich families. They seemed to him to have a maturity beyond their years. They flashed money and played table football confidently, and Pupatee felt very self-conscious among them.

  Suddenly, one of the lads looked up from the football table and stared at him.

  ‘Oh! Wait, no,’ the boy said to his friends. ‘That guy over deh with Roland give we a wicked beating one day, eh Trigger?’

  ‘Blood claat, ah him yes, ah him, same one, Boobs.’

  Boobs and Trigger, Pupatee thought, the same Boobs and Trigger he had fought once in Brixton. Lots of the kids had stopped talking and were now watching to see what would happen. Boobs and Trigger walked over and asked if he wanted to start where they had left off in the street. But there was no threat in their voices and Pupatee smiled back and shrugged his shoulders. In a moment, they were all smiling, and Pupatee was being bought a drink and a bun with cheese. Soon he had been introduced to the other boys. Mike and Big Youth, with whom he had also nearly fought on a separate occasion, were there too.

  ‘What your name?’ someone asked.

  ‘Tee,’ he said. This was a name he had sometimes been called in Camberwell. He was growing up now, and it was time to leave the childish Pupatee behind.

  As he made all these new friends, time seemed to fly by. Mrs J walked out of the kitchen carrying a tray of ackee and saltfish and a plate of salad, and Tee suddenly realised how hungry he was. Roland must have had the same feeling, because he beckoned him to leave.

  ‘Mum must have cooked dinner by now,’ he said. ‘Hey,’ he called out to the others, ‘later, me gone ca me ah get hungry, star.’

  ‘All right, me breddren.’

  ‘Boobs, Trigger.’

  ‘Later,’ they said. Then they asked Tee if he would still be around and Tee replied happily, ‘Yeah man, later!’

  Roland and Tee left the café and as they were crossing the road Roland pointed out a short, stocky black guy: ‘Yow, Smurphy!’ It was another friend. Brixton seemed ful
l of young West Indians, and Roland apparently knew them all. They stopped and talked for a while, and then they headed back home for dinner. The meal was just being shared out when they arrived, and after quickly washing their hands Roland and Tee sat down to a delicious meal of Caribbean stew peas and rice.

  Having lived alone with Joe, and done the cooking himself, it was a real treat for Tee to be part of a family again, sitting down with friendly faces and seeing the food arrive as if by magic. Within days he was happily used to the pattern of this new life. After dinner, the kids would help with the washing-up and then settle down for an evening in front of the television. Tee had never felt so happy.

  He and Roland were free to come and go almost as they liked, as long as they were in before eleven. Roland loved music, and whenever possible they would head for a youth club or disco or party. One of their favourite clubs was a place called Shepherd’s, which was open Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings until half past ten. The gatherings here were mostly black, although there were always some whites and Asians.

  In those days, youth clubs like Shepherd’s were mostly about dancing, and many of them held dance competitions. Tee was big and good at fighting, but Roland was slim and athletic and a star dancer. The dance of the time was a quicksilver style they called shuffling, and pairs of dancers would compete against each other to shuffle their feet faster and more brilliantly than each other. As the music beat faster, they would try out more and more dazzling moves until one of them would produce a step so quick and daring that he would be declared the winner. Often this was Roland.

  If he was giving his feet a rest, Roland would be disc jockeying, a microphone in his hand. Music was his life, and when he and Tee weren’t at the clubs or roaming the streets or watching Lost in Space or The Untouchables on television, they would be upstairs where Roland would sing the latest song he had written.

  At home in Pearl’s and Mr H’s house, Tee was always well behaved, polite and honest like Roland and Richie. But once out on the streets he was a free spirit. Previously he had always been running back home to cook and clean for Joe or work at his latest task, but now he had more free time to spend out on the streets, or at Shepherd’s or the Blue Lagoon café or other hang-outs. And the boys he became friendly with were those he had fought with over the years, teenagers like Big Youth, Scoby, Trigger, Mike Winston, Fritz, Chance and Boobs, who were already smoking and drinking and trying to follow in the footsteps of the older youths they saw on the streets of Brixton.