Love in Revolution (15 page)

Now.

I started to walk. There was a sound like a clock ticking, getting louder as I walked down the street towards it; it made me uneasy, as if it was counting down to something. When I looked round I realised it was the man in the doorway, still dripping blood on to the ground. There was a thin line of it running into the gutter.

I felt cold. I didn’t want to cross the street to him. I wouldn’t be able to help anyway; he probably needed stitches, and aspirin and iodine . . .

I crossed the street, running through the band of sunlight as if it was a searchlight, and threw myself into the doorway. I bent, shook his shoulder and said, ‘Are you all right?’ My voice cracked and gave out.

He didn’t need stitches, or aspirin, or iodine. And he wasn’t all right.

He was dead.

I thought, stupidly, that I’d never seen a dead body before, and wondered if I should be interested. But it wasn’t anything special, it was like looking at an empty suitcase. It made me feel queasy, but that was all. I had blood on my hand from his shirt, and I scraped it on the wall, trying to get it clean. But even when the stain had come off, my hand didn’t feel right. I kept on wiping it over and over again until the skin was red and raw. It hurt, but that didn’t matter; I just wanted to get the man’s blood off me.

There were shots, a long way away, and I came back to myself with a jolt. What was I doing, standing here, wiping my hand on the wall, while Skizi . . . ? I spun round and started to hurry down the street. I had to find her. What if she was slumped in a doorway somewhere, like . . . ?

I got to the end of the street, and stood staring down the narrow side street. Suddenly I realised how big Irunja was, and how hard it would be to find someone. I had no idea where to start looking. All I could do was go back to the arena. If she wasn’t there, at least I’d know she hadn’t been hurt straight away, when the fighting started . . .

Now that the sun had dipped behind the buildings it was chilly, and I remembered suddenly that it was October, not summer any more. I wrapped my arms round myself and started to walk. I wasn’t sure of the direction, but I thought I recognised the streets, and the smell of drains. Once I saw a policeman, but I ducked into an alleyway, my heart pounding, and when I peered out again he’d gone.

It took me longer than I thought it would, although I was hurrying, and even when I caught sight of the arena I couldn’t find the entrance. I turned down narrow, dim street after narrow, dim street, and it was only when I saw the same house with ox-blood shutters that I realised I was going in circles. I heard myself laugh, although it wasn’t funny. How stupid . . . The arena’s red and green banners flapped and sagged above me, so close I could see the hems on the cloth; but there was just a blank wall in front of me. Where was the entrance?

I went up to the wall, looking to left and right, but there were houses built up against it, so I couldn’t follow it round. But there were cracks in the bricks, and crumbling mortar, and if I jumped I might just be able to get to the top. I couldn’t go on wasting time like this; I had to get over that wall.

It didn’t work. I jumped at it, scrabbling for handholds, but my shoes wouldn’t get any purchase on the bricks and I dropped back to the ground. My hand stung where I’d rubbed the blood off. I wanted to curl up on the ground and cry.

But I didn’t. I took my shoes and stockings off, and tried again. This time my toes managed to grip the gap between the bricks, and I flung myself upwards, grabbing for the top of the wall, gasping for breath. I felt myself slipping – it wasn’t going to work – and I thought of Skizi on the other side, and suddenly my fingers were closing on the top of the wall, and I was hanging there, digging my feet into the crumbling mortar, and I knew I was going to do it.

I found myself kneeling on the top of the wall, the edge digging into my knees. There was sweat running down my face, and my heart was beating harder than it had when I saw the policeman. It was hard to keep my balance, but I shuffled my legs out from underneath me and slid awkwardly down the other side. The stands were in front of me, the space underneath dark and littered with bits of food and greaseproof paper. When I landed something scuttled away from me into the shadows.

I walked round the back of the stands, trying not to make any noise. It was so quiet – dead quiet, as if the walls of the enclosure kept out every little sound.

There was no one here. It was strange, after the pello game, when it had been so full, so noisy. Now it felt like the end of the world.

I stepped into the middle of the court, looking round. There were dark stains on the wooden seats, and the barrier of the east stand had been bashed into pieces. There were no bodies; they must have taken them away already. From this angle I couldn’t see inside the royal box, and I wondered if they’d remembered that he was there, the boy they’d shot . . . But it didn’t make any difference: he was an empty suitcase, I thought, just an empty suitcase . . . There was still a thin line of sunshine at the side of the court, but my teeth were chattering with the cold.

Skizi wasn’t here.

I walked across the clay to the ticket gates. They were hanging open, with a chain and a broken padlock trailing on the ground. There were tickets on the ground, smeared with red.

It was so silent. It felt like a practical joke, as if someone was waiting to jump out on me, yelling, ‘Made you look! Thought it was real, didn’t you?’

But no one did. It was as if it
was
real.

And a long way away I could hear gunfire again. It went on and on, machine guns and single shots, and after a while sirens joined in, and the wailing spread and echoed off the walls around me. I thought it was coming from the north-west, the direction of the Queen’s Park and the Palace. That was what Karl had said, anyway.

I realised with a shock that I hadn’t even thought about Leon. Where was he? Was he with Karl and the other Communists, trying to start a revolution?

Martin would have woken up by now. I ought to go back. If I didn’t, he might come looking for me, and if he got hurt, or –

No. Martin was safe, and Leon would be safer without me.

I had to find Skizi. That was all that mattered.

I didn’t know where to go next. But if she was hurt, if she was in danger . . .

I gritted my teeth and hugged myself, trying to stop shivering. Then I walked out through the ticket gates and turned right, towards the north-west, and the gunfire.

Eight

The streets were still deserted, so deathly silent that the gunfire was almost comforting. I hurried towards it, walking as quietly as I could, desperate to see someone – anyone. I felt like the last person left in the world.

There was a faint, bitter smell in the air, and it caught the back of my throat and made me cough. It smelt like our All Souls’ bonfire the time Martin dropped a rubber ball in the heap of leaves and forgot about it. It was a threatening, urgent kind of smell; it made me speed up, although I wasn’t sure why. I ran past the closed shops and shuttered windows. The red flags and banners – there were a few green ones too, but not many – flapped uneasily in the breeze. There should have been King’s Cup parties on the streets, people celebrating, going over every detail of the game; but there was nothing but the growing shadows and the whiff of smoke.

The firing was closer now, and I could hear shouting, glass smashing, police whistles. I felt light-headed, and my knees had gone watery again. If Skizi was in the middle of that . . . And for the first time I thought I might not be able to find her, or that even if I did, she might get hurt anyway. Hurt, or –

No. I was going to find her.

It was hard to make my legs move, but I crossed the road and stood at the corner of a side street, looking down it. At the far end, through the narrow gap between the buildings, I could see movement, and the flash of red and brown. The air was hazy, as if I was seeing everything through dirty glass.

I carried on walking, stumbling on broken bits of pavement, as if the nerves in my legs weren’t working properly. When I got close to the end of the street I stood in the shadows, looking one way and then the other. The smoke rasped in my throat again and made me want to cough, but I swallowed hard, not wanting to make a noise.

There was a barricade, piled with chairs and tables and mattresses; and on the near side of it there were little groups of men in shirtsleeves, holding rifles. I saw one pouring liquid out of a petrol can into milk bottles, pausing to wipe his hands on his trousers. Next to him there was a woman holding two rifles, trying to brush her hair off her forehead with her arm. The man said something to her and she laughed. For a second I felt a kind of blinding envy: I wanted to be there, holding a rifle in each hand, part of what was going on . . . Then I heard another burst of firing, and everyone ducked. There was a thump, and the barricade juddered as if someone was trying to knock it down from the other side.

At the other end of the street, to my right, there was a larger group of people. They were young, all about Leon’s age, and they were sharing food and drinking from vodka bottles. A few young men were sitting in the doorway. If you didn’t look too closely, it could almost have been a King’s Cup party; but they were all tense and unsmiling, as if they were waiting for something. In the centre of the group there was one man with rolled-up sleeves and a red cap, leaning forward and talking in a low voice. I stood still, staring at his back. There was something familiar . . .

Suddenly two people ran out of one of the side streets parallel to the one I’d just come down, shouting and waving long swathes of green, like banners. Everyone looked round, and I saw the face of the man who’d been talking. It was Karl. He stood up and called out, and I saw two more men spilling into the street, one of them wrapped in another green flag; he was dragging the other, who had a green sash over his shoulder. I saw something in his hand glint silver in the last of the sunlight, the familiar shape of a two-handled bowl, the King’s Cup . . .

Then he looked round, and I caught sight of his face.

It was Angel.

And the man who was with him was Leon.

He was laughing, with a high, hoarse note in his voice that didn’t sound like amusement. He pushed Angel forward and doubled over, putting his hands on his knees. He said, ‘Sweet heart of Jesus, we nearly got shot . . .’ and went on laughing.

Karl shrugged, and folded himself down again on to the pavement. He said, over his shoulder, ‘Sit down, Comrade, and pull yourself together.’

Leon stood up straight and said, still with an edge of hilarity in his voice, ‘Hey, don’t you realise who this is? This is Angel Corazon, Comrade. This is the great man himself.’

Angel glanced round, and crossed his arms over the King’s Cup, to protect it.

A few people swapped looks. Then someone said, ‘Leon . . . he’s a pello player. He’s not even a Communist.’ He turned to Angel. ‘Are you?’

Angel shrugged, and his hands tightened on the handles of his trophy.

There was a kind of silence, filled only with the firing from the other side of the barricade. Then the woman with the two rifles walked over, shaking her hair over her shoulders. She said, ‘Angel Corazon? Are you really?’

Angel nodded. But she didn’t seem to see; her eyes were on the King’s Cup, and she stretched out one of her arms as if she wanted to touch it, as if she’d forgotten about the rifles she was holding. Then she grinned at Leon, and turned to Karl. She said, ‘He’s right, Comrade. What a man to have with us! The people love him – or they will now . . . Our hero. A true man of the proletariat . . .’

Leon grinned back at her. Angel looked from him to her and back again, his mouth a little open.

Karl said, ‘Let’s make sure the revolution actually happens, before we worry about matinee idols for our propaganda, shall we?’

The revolution? I leant back against the wall, my legs shaking, a kind of sob rising in my throat. They all seemed so serious . . . But this was just a bread riot – a disturbance – not a
revolution
. . .

I closed my eyes. What was I doing here? I ought to go back to Martin. I’d never find Skizi, and if the police caught me with Leon and his friends . . .

Distantly, I heard Angel say, ‘I just . . . I’m good at pello, that’s all . . .’ but no one answered him.

A clear, light voice said, ‘Let’s get on with it then.’ I opened my eyes again. It was the woman, talking over her shoulder as she walked back to the barricade.

‘Yes . . . where is everyone?’ Leon said, polishing his glasses on the cuff of his shirt. He was covered in dust and dark stains; it didn’t look as if he’d get them very clean. ‘What’s the plan?’

The glint went out of Karl’s eyes, and he looked into the middle distance, biting his lip. ‘Most people seem to be concentrated in the main streets. They’re hemmed in by the police, but they’ll break out. The army was mobilised, but they seem not to want to fire on their own people, which is good. The police are armed, but they’re outnumbered fifty to one. God, Leon,
so
many people
. . .’ he added, and then shook his head. ‘Amazing. But the important thing is, the police don’t have enough men to worry too much about us, here. Except for –’ There was another burst of gunfire, and he grimaced. ‘Well. A few of them. But we’ve got relative freedom. We can take advantage of the situation.’