I Conquer Britain (15 page)

She believed that the more you knew about the past, the better chance you had of getting the future right.

“And besides that, it means I’m just the person to show you the things you won’t see in New York.” Tiki’s boyfriend was in France for the summer and her college pals all lived somewhere else, so she was happy to have someone to hang out with. She may have been the same age as the Czar, but Tiki didn’t think I was just a kid, she thought I was a person.

Since Tiki was also the only one close to my age that did seem to think I was a person, I was happy as a pig with a satchel to eat, but I wasn’t sure I could survive another tour. I felt they were like eating okra. You know, you should try it once but you wouldn’t actually want to make a habit of it. I told her I didn’t really like the idea of tours. I’d never actually been on one that wasn’t led by Robert, but you see them a lot in New York. Everybody piling off the bus and following the guide like a flock of sheep.
Look at this… Look at that… You’ll want a picture of this…
And anyway, though it was really nice of her to offer and everything, I’d already seen the Tower and the Houses of Parliament and the Roman wall and a lot of other things I couldn’t actually remember, so I figured I’d pretty much covered all the major sights.

“Not those sights,” said Tiki. “We’re going where no tour has gone before.”

So when she wasn’t working, Tiki would pick me up on her scooter and we’d hit the clogged and polluted roads of the city.

It was like taking someone on a tour of New York and going to Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island and leaving out the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. North, south, east, west, Tiki’s trusty scooter took us all over. We went to places like Clerkenwell Green, where the protest march that ended in Bloody Sunday started (I took a picture for Sky) and Cable Street, where the people in the neighbourhood stopped the Fascists from marching in the 1930s (I took a picture for Grandpa Gene so he could get to grips with exactly how long the war really was). We went past about a thousand houses where someone famous used to live, and about ten thousand where nobody famous ever lived. We went past these old cabbies’ shelters (that were started so cabbies wouldn’t all disappear into pubs in bad weather and get drunk). We went to this amazing roof garden on top of what used to be a department store that has a stream, and bridges and a lake and a pair of flamingoes. We went to this really old burial ground where William Blake and Daniel Defoe are buried (I took a picture for Jake) and this excellent cemetery where Karl Marx is buried (another picture for Sky). We drove down the road where Buckingham palace is, but not so I could see the palace, so I could see the nose stuck to the side of Admiralty Arch. We saw the narrowest building and a really old pub where boxing started. We went to Petticoat Lane and Brick Lane to see the markets and eat bagels. We went to Tiki’s cousin’s birthday party in Willesden Green. We went to this really funky vegetarian restaurant on Clapham Common. If Tiki knew about it, that’s where we went.

But mainly we just putted up and down ordinary roads you would only see if you actually lived in the area. We saw old watering troughs and fountains, and ancient milestones, and narrow cobbled streets that were straight out of a novel by Charles Dickens and this house that had a garden with a waterfall running from the roof to the ground on the front.

It definitely made time jump on a jet, I’ll say that. Before I knew it Caroline was talking about finally having our barbecue so I could say goodbye to people I’d pretty much never met.

And then one evening Tiki said, “I can’t believe how dense I’ve been. I know a place you
have
to see before you go back.”

“Not a museum,” I begged. “I really don’t do museums.”

“Don’t worry.” Tiki laughed. “We’re going to Camden, Goth capital of the world.”

The Goth capital of the world, and nobody told
me
? I wasn’t sure if she was kidding me or not. “Really? In London?”

Tiki shrugged. “Where else?”

Caroline was sitting at the kitchen table, finalizing her plans for my farewell barbecue.

“It’s not going to be anything grand. Just us, the Aswanis, the Scolfields and the Jemisons – and Nana Bea, of course.” She looked up from the guest list she’d just written. “Is there anyone else you can think of?”

I said, “The Jemisons?”

Caroline must have heard some astonished surprise in my voice because she gave me a thoughtful look. “Daniel’s parents.”

I knew that. “I wasn’t really asking who they were… I just thought—”

Caroline was still looking at me in a puzzled kind of way. Then her face lit up like someone had turned the light on. “Oh… You mean because of what happened with Sophie?”

“What happened with Sophie?”

I didn’t mean that at all. I was thinking more of what happened with
me
.

Caroline glanced around the kitchen like she thought Sophie was about to walk through a wall and ask her what she thought she was doing talking about her. “I’m not meant to know anything about it, of course. All Sophie said was that she and Daniel broke up and that it was mutual and that they were still friends, but naturally Alison Scolfield told me as soon as she found out that Jocelyn was going out with him.”

I decided to stick to born-yesterday mode. “Daniel used to go out with Sophie?”

“I don’t think it was very serious. Sophie certainly didn’t seem very upset by what happened. She and Jocelyn are still best mates.”

Of course they were. That’s why Sophie was in Brooklyn. And Jocelyn couldn’t stop putting her down.

I managed a smile. “How nice.”

“Besides,” said Caroline, “I thought you and Daniel were friendly. He was ringing you every day for a while.”

For six days. Jocelyn came back from her gran’s at about the same time I’d run out of excuses for not hanging out with him.

“Oh, it’s not that I don’t like him or anything—” I loathed him. He was the slime ball from the Planet Creepton. “I—”

Was saved not by the bell but by our resident writer.

Robert stopped in the doorway as though he’d come into the wrong room. “What’s the occasion, Cherry?” He looked worried, like he’d not only come into the wrong room but he was wearing his pyjamas. “Are we having people to lunch?” It’s the kind of thing he’d forget. “You’re all dressed up.”

I hadn’t worn my lace skirt and my diamanté top since the day I arrived. They seemed a little fancy for dog walking or fooling around in the garden. “I’m going to Camden this afternoon.”

“Thank God for that. I was afraid we had plans I didn’t know about.” He sat down with a sigh of relief. “But why on Earth would you want to go all the way up there?”

Caroline rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake Robert, it’s North London, not the North Pole.”

“It’s over the river.” Like it was on the moon. It was like people who never go above 14th Street in Manhattan. He poured himself a cup of tea, then looked at me. “I’ll repeat my question. Cherry, dear, why on Earth would you want to go all the way up there?”

“It’s part of my unofficial tour of London.”

“I thought we’d already had our tour of London.” Robert looked a little offended. “I can’t think I missed much out.”

“This is different. That was all the important tourist stuff, but this time I’m seeing all the things we don’t have in New York that tourists don’t see.”

“Really? Like Karl Marx’s grave?”

Been there, done that. “Exactly.”

“Well, I’m impressed.” He picked up his cup. “So how have you planned it? Do you have a guidebook?”

I bit into my toast. “I don’t need a book. I’ve got Tiki.”

“Tiki?” He looked at Caroline, then back at me. “And who or what is Tiki?”

“She’s my friend. You know, the one I go out with all the time?”

Robert blinked. The man was so totally oblivious it was just as well he hardly left the house – he’d have a hard time finding his way back again.

“Mrs Aswani’s youngest daughter,” said Caroline. “You know, from the shop round by Mum’s.”

“The Aswanis’ daughter?”

Caroline huffed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Robert, don’t tell me you haven’t seen her scooter out front.”

“Well how am I meant to know whose scooter it is? You could have ordered a pizza.” He put his cup back down and turned to me. “So let me get this straight, Cherry. Are you saying that you didn’t want to see Buckingham Palace, but you’re going to see Camden?”

“That’s right.” I finished off my own cup of tea. “It’s the Goth capital of the world.”

Robert nodded really slowly. “Of course. How did I manage to overlook that?”

“You have a good time,” said Caroline. “Don’t forget, Nana Bea’s coming for supper. Shall we say sevenish? That way you won’t have to rush.”

“That sounds great.”

I figured I’d be back long before seven.

Which just shows how wrong you can be.

(Sod and Murphy strike again.)

Tiki and I spent hours wandering through the main market in Camden. I’d been to farmers’ markets and street markets and craft fairs, but I’d never seen anything like it. This was the real deal. If there was a place like this anywhere in New York (even Queens!) I’d never shop anywhere else. Incense, candles, Celtic totems, silver earrings, Day of the Dead stuff, funky clothes, vintage gear, serious Goth gear, futuristic gear and outrageous shoes … it was better than a dream come true because it’s not something I would have been able to imagine till I saw it. I’d never have to make myself another skirt or cut up another pair of socks to wear as gauntlets again. There was even a part where they sold so many different kinds of food from all over the world that I wasn’t sure what country we were in. After I’d pretty much spent my life’s savings we headed up the high street.

“Oh, wow! Look at that, Tiki. Jake would go nuts for this stuff.”

Most of the shops had enormous, 3-D signs out front – shoes, jackets, a giant chair, dice, and one even had Elvis. We definitely had nothing like this in Brooklyn.

“Didn’t I tell you that you’d like Camden?”

“I do,” I said. “I truly do.”

There were about a million shoe stores with the most outrageous stuff. I bet this was where Mr Wottle came to buy his daughter’s killer boots.

Their were tonnes of regular people milling around, but there were also so many really serious punks, hippies and decked-out goths that it looked like a film set (
The Addams Family
meets
The Clash
during
The Summer of Love
).

“Come on,” said Tiki. “I’ve been saving the best for last.”

The best was a real Goth pub where we could sit outside and eat potato chips and have a soda.

Only (as I’ve discovered often happens in life) we never made it to the pub.

We’d battled our way through the crowds to the road where we were supposed to turn left, when I saw the first sight I
really
never expected to see.

Just ahead of us, near the subway station, were two guys and a girl with signs and petitions. They looked like they’d just come from an anti-globilization demonstration. The girl had bright red hair and was wearing a pink tutu over her combat trousers, and the guys wore old jeans and Indian shirts and strings of beads around their necks. The fairer of the two guys was talking to two dudes who looked totally straight and normal (NY baseball caps and jeans and Nike T-shirts, that kind of thing) except that they each held a can of beer and looked pretty mad about something.

“Good God!” I grabbed Tiki’s arm and pulled her to a stop. “It’s the Czar!”

Assuming that I’d either lost my mind or was making some weird Brooklyn joke, Tiki laughed. “The what?”

“The Czar. You know. Xar. Caroline’s son.”

“Here?” She smiled in that way people do when they think you must be seeing things. “Caroline’s son? What would he be doing
here
?”

It looked like he was starting the revolution. I pointed her in the right direction. “There! Look up there. The guy with the sign that says End Third World Debt. The one who’s doing the talking. That’s the Czar.” He might not speak to his parents, but he had no trouble talking to strangers.

“
That’s
the Czar? I didn’t think he’d look like that.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t think he’d look like that?”

“I don’t know … I reckon I thought he’d be taller … or wearing a crown.”

“Come on.” I pulled on her arm. “Let’s go see what’s going on.”

Tiki shrugged. “OK. We’re in no hurry.”

Timing really is everything, isn’t it? If the first creature to crawl out of the primal soup had been beaned by an asteroid as soon as it poked its head out of the water the whole history of the planet might have been different. And if we’d come up the street ten minutes sooner or ten minutes later our Sunday would probably have had a completely different ending.

But we weren’t ten minutes later or ten minutes sooner. We reached the Czar and his friends just as one of the beer drinkers started shouting some all-purpose abuse about their personal hygiene, their sexual practices and what they could do with their petitions.

There might have been a lot of hippies around, but this definitely wasn’t the Summer of Love.

“Uh oh…” said Tiki. “It looks like somebody’s let the dogs out.”

The girl was shouting back at them, but the Czar and the other guy stayed calm as the Dalai Lama.

The Czar smiled. “I think what you suggested would be a bit of a physical impossibility.”

Mr Straight and Normal took a step forward. “I’ll show you what’s a physical impossibility.”

“It’s scum like you lot what’s ruining this country,” said his buddy.

The Czar’s friend stepped closer to him. “Why don’t you just move on, mate?”

“Don’t you talk to me like that.” Mr Straight and Normal jabbed him in the chest with his can. “I ain’t your mate.”

The Czar sighed. “Look, just move on, all right? Nobody wants any trouble.”

He wasn’t exactly right about that. Passers-by had started slowing down and hovering, the way people do when they think someone’s going to jump off a roof.

Lots of us don’t perform well in front of a crowd. Crowds make us shy and self-conscious. We don’t like to be seen behaving badly or acting like a total jerk. But to others of us seeing a crowd gathering is like pulling the pin on a grenade.